Itinerant Air-Cooled

passenger side axle was click click CLICK CLICKing away, bad CV, but only a few years old. I did the 'whole axle' swap last time it went bad, rather than just fixing the 'bad' one.

this time I bought a good German made CV and boot kit, and paid the local shop to press the new one on.

the only issue was I wasn't totally sure if it was the inner or outter CV. I had removed the trans on this since the CV was done, but only disconnected the inner to do so, so ive been under the assumption (ruh roh) that the inner was bad since I probably introduced some crap into the system at that time.

well, for the price of a whole new axle with CV's already installed, I paid someone to press the new German on one the inner side of the axle and then I reinstalled it.

exact same noise as before.

fixed the wrong side.

Hell is in the details.


neal

I figured once I had it off the van there would be some way to tell which one was actually bad, but they both seemed well greased and didn't make any odd noises through their range of motions.


now I have to decide, do I get another new CV and swap out the other end, or put the assumingly good one that we just removed on the other end instead...

or just buy the damned complete axle again and be done with the second guessing....

I admit my experience is somewhat limited and perhaps I'm just lucky, but in the nine (yes, I did just one once) CV's I've replaced/repacked, I've never had to have one pressed on or off. A socket of the appropriate size and smart usage of the hammer worked just fine.

Going even further to the shallow end of the experience pool, I've not heard good things about the pre-assembled axles. Buying good joints, packing them with good grease and using good boots is the way to go.

I have found that a 2 jaw gear puller from Sears is also a help....(but I already owned it)....

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1260 ... 0001&aff=Y

I was all worried about that "pressing" business, too, but found that the CVs on Bertha slid off fairly readily, and back on.


neal

Fresh CVs will require a decent puller, VW used LocTite at initial assembly.

I just did a 4 CV repack (yesterday in Los Alamos) on a later bus where the convex thrust washer has been deleted, and I hate that they did that. The hubs bang back and forth once the LocTite lets go, and the circlip gets loose in the groove.

If you have to go into the CVs, do them all. Even the clickers, * if you haven't deferred a repack for too long * will settle down with fresh grease. The Road Warrior clicked on me in 2005 along the barrier outside of San Francisco, I pulled over at the approach to the Bay Bridge and blobbed some grease into the ends of the CVs, and they held for the subsequent 60 or 70,000 miles. I do not know whicj specific joint was causing the noise and did not care. They all looked so horrible, there was no guessing which one anyway.

A horrible OEM joint beats a new EMPI.
Colin

im off to pull it and simply repack to see if it makes any difference.
may as well swap inner/outer, since its easier for me to inject more grease into the inner once installed (on the Vanagon, since the outer is hidden into that box/arm)

this has turned into how REALLY not to do it.

frickin frick frick

so I pumped grease into the outer CV, rolled it a bit, still super loud (I didn't expect it would fix it now that its already been clicking so loud for so long, but worth a shot)

so, gotta take it off and pull the old/bad CV off and hopefully swap on the old/good CV onto that side (that I had pulled off of the inner side, turned out not to be the bad one.)

but, I stripped a bolt. one of the bolts for the CV on the outer side, which on the Vanagon means it's also inside that suspension/arm/box and very difficult to get inside of.

no amount of PB blaster and gentle turning helped, and as I searched for any little spot that would catch and get some torque onto it's just completely round inside now. I had a torx bit I tried to bang into there and turn it, but it's just grinding away the metal and making a slightly larger circle.

managed to hammer the head of a flathead screwdriver into the hole, but I just can't get enough grip on it, it just pops out when you try to turn it.

im pretty screwed at this point. im sure there's more tricks to getting this *(&(* out of here, but not sure ill be the one trying it. I haven't had my VW's at a mechanic in a while (outside of my yearly itinerant visit of course) - but this may have turned into a job for professionals. sure, I might get it eventually, but after spending how much time/pain/money on it first?

airkooledchris wrote:this has turned into how REALLY not to do it.

frickin frick frick

so I pumped grease into the outer CV, rolled it a bit, still super loud (I didn't expect it would fix it now that its already been clicking so loud for so long, but worth a shot)

so, gotta take it off and pull the old/bad CV off and hopefully swap on the old/good CV onto that side (that I had pulled off of the inner side, turned out not to be the bad one.)

but, I stripped a bolt. one of the bolts for the CV on the outer side, which on the Vanagon means it's also inside that suspension/arm/box and very difficult to get inside of.

no amount of PB blaster and gentle turning helped, and as I searched for any little spot that would catch and get some torque onto it's just completely round inside now. I had a torx bit I tried to bang into there and turn it, but it's just grinding away the metal and making a slightly larger circle.

managed to hammer the head of a flathead screwdriver into the hole, but I just can't get enough grip on it, it just pops out when you try to turn it.

im pretty screwed at this point. im sure there's more tricks to getting this *(&(* out of here, but not sure ill be the one trying it. I haven't had my VW's at a mechanic in a while (outside of my yearly itinerant visit of course) - but this may have turned into a job for professionals. sure, I might get it eventually, but after spending how much time/pain/money on it first?

A) Get a BF chisel and make a BF screwdriver slot. Use regular screwdriver bit with 1/4" socket or whatever and an extension so you can clear the housing and ratchet that sucker out. Fail?

B) Get a BF grindstone on your Dremel or slice it to death with a cutting wheel and take the head of the bolt clean off. Remove axle. Use it as a slide hammer if need be. Remove BF nut on axle shaft. Tap axle shaft out of wheel bearing carrier. Remove bolt shank with Vise Grips.

pics to follow, but thankfully _ I got that F(*er out of there.

the 12triplesquare banged in there REALLY hard ended up backing it out finally.

So I did it the right way, as much as I didn't really want to anymore.

Got another complete good german brand new CV instead of a rebuilt axle, so I have two brand new german CV's on both ends of this axle.

and the clicking is gone, so job done. woohoo.

the offending parts. they have 12k or so miles on them.

if you ever wondered what it would look like animated.

airkooledchris wrote:

if you ever wondered what it would look like animated.

Cool. Better yet with the "V" s represented in the grooves.
Who did that animation?
Colin
(p.s. your new CV joint photographs )

12k miles.....you have my sypathies.
this is getting ridiculous. If if says "HAM" on the package then it shouldn't be sawdust. Who can afford this these days? Well those getting rich off our social status of course.