Itinerant Air-Cooled

I'm about to start repacking my CV joints and I'm looking for clarification on something Colin told me. I forget the details, he said something about when putting the CV joints and axle back on I should swap them so they wear on different surfaces.

My question is, do you switch the whole driver's side setup (cv joints and drive shaft) with the passenger's side setup? Or are you just switching the inner joint with the outer joint while keeping it on the same side of the car?

IIRC, I would assume you need to keep them on the same side of the car and switch the inner for the outer joint. That seams to be the way you would get them to wear on a new surface.

iwantmybustorun wrote:IIRC, I would assume you need to keep them on the same side of the car and switch the inner for the outer joint. That seams to be the way you would get them to wear on a new surface.

I was wrong... I found this link from Randyinmaine on another thread.

http://www.van-cafe.com/home/van/page_1 ... nence.html

It says:
"Rotate the CVs at about 25,000 miles (more frequently if you like). NOTE: This is not possible on automatic transmissions, as the axles are different lengths! (You can accomplish this by moving the CVs to different axle locations, but this takes more effort.) See the section on removal and replacement below. CVs take wear on one face of the ball hubs only (except when you drive in reverse), so they can be made to run in the opposite direction to extend their life. There are two ways you can accomplish this. Assume you're looking at the back of the van, and the CVs are labeled with letters, like this:
A------B Transmission C------D
You can move the axles so that the letters now read:
C------D Transmission A------B (option 1) OR
D------C Transmission B------A (option 2)

These two configurations will result in the forces being applied to the CVs being reversed. Note, however, that the following configuration will NOT reverse the forces applied to the CV joint rotation:

B------A Transmission D------C"

Is option 2 what you refer to as running in the opposite direction? Is this the better way to go?

The two options presented by Randy are essentially the same, the key point is to move each axle assembly to the other side of the car (ie. left to right and right to left). Whether you swap the ends around is of no import (and in fact, there are two more options that Randy didn't mention, both of which are equally inconsequential).

Or, in response to your original two questions: Yes. No.

CarlosZ wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 09, 2018 4:01 pm

Is option 2 what you refer to as running in the opposite direction? Is this the better way to go?

The only difference is flipping the ends and it doesn't matter not a whit. What matters is to get the entire driveshaft over to the other side.
Colin