CV joints for 914/4, no longer available? Options

[reverie]

John Walker's post over on Pelican asks about this.

CV joints seem to be NLA... nobody has them.

Is this part cross-listed as a VW part? (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/huh.gif)

[ArtechnikA]

QUOTE (rdauenhauer @ Mar 8 2005, 02:58 PM)

...all of that is clear and your correct obvious except "excessive slop in the CV" which Id imagine would lead you to dissasemble the danm thing in the first place. How to do assess that you have a "sloppy" of failing CV as opposed to any other # of problems in your drivetrain/suspension?

halfshafts should be removed, cleaned, inspected, repacked, and reinstalled with new Schnorr washers and (ideally, IMO) new bolts, on a periodic basis.

mostly it depends on how hard they're being called upon to work -- how many track days transmitting full power, how many AX's with body roll, how many really hot days. and the quality of the grease used.

when i did a full season of track events, i repacked the CV's twice in the year. real racer guys probably have an even more aggressive inspection/repack schedule. some folks also swap them from side to side to equalize the thrust wear.

CV's must have a substantial amunt of compliance axially, but when you grab the drive shaft, you should not be able to detect any rotational movement, and if you try to move the axle up-and-down or back-and-forth, there should be no movement.

remove, iclean, inspect, and repack the halfshafts every couple of years and you'll see little cracks in the cages and excessive wear before it's bad enough to risk failure at speed (which you don't want to have happen especially to an inboard joint...)