Can this be done?

I need to put a ford hub from my old shafts on the end of shortened RX8 shafts.

I was thinking of approaching an engineer to ask him to cut the two shafts and join using a 'sleeve'.

Am I heading for trouble?

Much better if you have them remade. Try GB engineering

GB did mine - a good job at a reasonable cost ..... and peace of mind

I did mine myself, just put the 2 halves together in the lathe to keep them in line, vee them out then pile in with the welder on max power, I've broken a few bits in the driveline thro' abuse!! But the shafts have held up fine. If you slide asleeve over for additional strength then weld that up should be bomb proof.

For peace of mind i'd be tempted to go for new shafts. They can be welded together and the pro's do them by friction welding. Depending on where you are there are quite a few places that do them too. I looked at sleeving mine once, but couldn't get any sleeves to suit.

Stuart Taylor (now Aries Motorsport) do pretty much whats just been described. Not heard any horror stories about their shafts breaking - depends what use the vehicle's going to get i suppose. Best bet is to get new made by someone like GB.

If you are shortening the shafts, it could help to machine the cut ends to form a lap joint inside the sleeve

Cheers

Fred W B

Thanks all.

How much would I be looking at to have new shafts made?

Mine were £160 ish the pair iirc - that was with different spline counts on each end.

I shortened my driveshafts DIY by sleeving - so far so good. To connect mazda gear to ford diff I made some adapters on my lathe out of 5/8 sheet steel - absolute piece of cake.
It's tempting to get some proper driveshafts made though for peace of mind.
I got a quote for friction welding from a place in gateshead - it was not much cheaper than buying new, they were havin a giraffe...
Bob