OK, so I pulled both joints and just finished cleaning up the one. I re-assembled based on the thread in the classic forum.


Someone assuage my fears and tell me I put it back together correctly!

So I also read the portion about re-assembling and the concave washer so here is my question. First, I DID NOT pull the entire axle out of the car. Now, the Cap'n mentioned a good sturdy socket and wack the circlip until it seats. Since the axle is not out of the car, is this still a good method OR, did I screw myself and now will have to pull the rest of the assembly out of the car? Suggestions on getting it back on and seating the circlip would be highly appreciated!

Gonna go clean up the second CV and re-assemble it; will check back later to see if anyone has any suggestions.

yup.

Thanks Eric.

Next question, and I think I already know the answer. Toast??





The other one was OK and had some minor wear but there is some serious pitting in this one! Its the Driver's side assembly.

i'd get a new one. that one could last a while more, but if you reuse it, you wont get too many more miles out of it. unless your doing an emergency repair, you should replace that one.

be sure to use brand new snap rings, the best ring is a real snap ring with the holes to you use for the spreading pliers, the stock rings do not have this, and hence are harder to install.

Do NOT bang on teh end of teh axle when one side is still installed, you will be tranfering teh blows to the oppostie joint, and that can damage them, break the cage or ding the balls.

frankly you might as well clean inspect and repack both sides of the axle at once, eventually they all need to be serviced, adn it is easiest to both at teh same time out of the car.
you want to keep up the cleanliness and grease on these joints seeing as they are now out of production and getting very expensive. ignore service ont hem and they will fail much much faster

Well, that sucks. Guess I'll go and pull the rest of the assembly out tomorrow and see what I find. This should be fun...not. Anyone know where I can get CV joints? Eric, I saw your kit but I already have everything except the new washer's and circlips; do you just the CV joints?

your in germany???? cant really help you source a CV there. I'd try High Perfromance house out in california 650-364-6234 They had some good used ones a while ago, I bought one of his complete axle assemblys a while ago but he did not have too many left of these (brand new!) he certainly has some used ones. They shoudl also have the clips and washers you need. you always must use new lock washers.

shipping and VAT tax may or may not make it worth it to ship it over there.

Yup.

Nope.

Actually, the kit components don't add much more to the cost which is why we do them that way. Meaning; if I did just CV's they'd be around the same price.

I have 3 NOS Lobro CV's if you are interested, $130 ea. Not cheap, but they are real 914 CV's.

Gotcha! I am checking a local German supplier here; since I am going to pull the whole assembly and check I'll wait to see how many I may need. If the local guy doesn't have anything then I'll order what I need from you in the complete kit and just hold onto the other stuff for spare parts. I think I'm heading down the 'while the motor's out' curse...

Definitely an amateur at this, but from the looks of the picture, it seems that the inner "spider" with the threads is on backwards. Notice the shiny ring on the inside where the cupped washer has pressed against. I just did the same thing to my car and had a very difficult time trying to put the original circlip back on. Go to youtube.com and look up "porsche 914 cv joint rebuild" it helped a lot.

Shipping is not an issue since I am military, I have an APO box which means stuff is shipped to NJ via normal USPS and then put onto either a military aircraft or ship and brought over. Costs me to ship here what it would cost in the states.

Thanks, will consider it when I finish evaluating the rest of the setup.

Down and dirty check, pull the cage and balls run your finger in the grooves and if you feel a divet they are junk.
Why clean the garbage.

No divet then they are worth cleaning for a 2nd look.

So, after beating the living hell out of the castellated nut on the right side of the vehicle she came loose. Took my drift and tapped out the axle and she came out with ease. Unfortunately, the left side nut is not budging! I have soaked it in penetrating oil and pounded the the hell out of the 30mm socket and 12" extension to no avail! I finally called it quits for the day, need to do some homework.

Hornbach rents tools so I will see if they have a sturdy 1/2 inch electric impact wrench I can rent next week. Maybe the break will let the nut loosen. In the meantime, I'll go ahead and strip the outside CV joint on the axle I was able to pull out and do an inspection on it tomorrow.

Anyone have any recommendations on breaking the death grip on the castellated nut?

Lots of heat. Set a MAPP torch on it for 5 minutes. Do that about 4x before the 1/2". The heat cycling should help break the bond.

Will have to check and see if I can find a reasonable one here in Germany. Hornbach, OBI and TOOM all have a welding section maybe I can find one there. Thanks for the suggestion, I had heard of that before but had completely forgotten about it.

Remember if you need 914 parts and are in Germany you can always try Mittelmotor in Bochum, ask for Michale or Manuel bothe speak Englidh perfectly... unless of course your Germin ist gut...

Mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut! Mittelmotor ist sehr weit entfernt; Ich habe eine genauere Person.

Altavista babelfish is your friend! There is a guy about an hour from me or less that I am picking up two complete axles from for 100 euro. That should give me enough parts to make sure I have four good CV joints.

I pulled the outside joint off this afternoon and did Mark Henry's test, this CV is good. Now, once I pull off the other axle I'll check that outside one as well. The goal is to make sure I have the best of the 6 total CV joints that I will have in my possession to put back into the car. Hadn't thought I was going to have to mess with the suspension this early on but I am learning a lot from it especially with the help of this fantastic group of people.

I broke a 1/2" breaker bar trying to remove one of those nuts before. Now I use a 3/4" breaker bar and a long piece of pipe over the handle. Proper torque on the nuts is about 200ft-lbs and I have needed twice that to remove a couple of them.

I install 2 lug nuts and use an axle shaft from them to a block of wood on the floor to keep the wheel hub from rotating. The parking brake or the weight of the car isn't sufficient to resist the required force for nut removal.

Old Thread

Thanks Chris, interesting read; I will try the way of the electric impact if I can find one first. If that fails then maybe a 3/4 and long extension, last ditch will be the MAPP torch that Eric recommended. Wish me luck.

I bought a really big ass pipe wrench about three feet long many years ago.

That wrench and apiece of thickwall plumbing pipe to run it out to about 6-7 feet work for me. Well, maybe a little jumping up and down on the pipe too.

Well ladies and gentlemen, after a leisurely drive up to Fuerth on Tuesday I came back with two axle's and two door lock cylinders That and we found a real interesting area called Zwei Burg or 2 Castles and drove around looking at the Old palace in Fuerth as well as the two castles up on the hill. We'll be going back to do more sightseeing the next couple of months.

One axle looks almost brand new and the other is older but I think it is just some corrosion on the outside; I'll tear them down tonight to check the CV joints out. Ironically, the guy who sold me the parts, Patrick Hess, buys 914s from the US to work on and part out. He has a whole barn full of parts! Definately a good source for future reference. He is in the process of building himself a 914-6 and works on it as time permits.

I was able to score a couple of lock cylinders from him so hopefully I have enough of those little wafer thingies to re-key my locks now. If not I'll hit him up for a few more.

On a different note; my head with the problem spark plug hole will be going to the Porsche factory today for repair. No you didn't read it wrong. The machinist that was looking at it has a son that works for Porsche and he wanted to take it in to have his guys fix it so it will go in today. Can't beat that for service. Hopefully I will have everything back together and the car back on the road by mid May otherwise it won't be until June as I have a trip to Italy, Africa and North Carolina scheduled back to back in May which will cut into my time to fix this problem.

That and the registration for the car is due in June so I gotta get it fixed before then! Will be borrowing an electri impact wrench from the auto craft shop today as they have one available, hopefully that will help me get the damn nut off the driver's side wheel! Looks like I'll be busy this weekend!

Hopefully you'll get to hit the Outer Banks.

Wishful thinking, I'll be stuck in Fayettville doing 'Army training sir!' Will probably get up to RDU to visit the brother in law though.

You are spraying that sucker with penetrant every day and tapping it- aren't you?

On old hot rodder showed me that trick and after about a week, cars are a lot easier to dissasemble

Harbor Freight, 4 foot pipe wrench $30 dollar US....

For you? $29.99

Now, having lived in Europe, Harbor Freight may not be an option.

I'm touched by your generosity...

Haven't been spraying it down and tapping though; we'll see what the impact wrench does tomorrow.

The German's don't do Harbor Freight, even their cheap stuff, relatively speaking is heads and tails above HF quality.

I know all about German Quality.

I grew up in Europe with German toys. they came with screwdrivers, wrenches, bags of hardware and you had to put them together. Once together, they actually worked and did things. Still have some of them.

That's so unlike the toys being sold now that guarantee your kid will never have to figure anything out, will never get hurt, and the toys will break tomorrow.

Hey, when in Fayett-nam get some sweet tea, BBQ, hush puppies, and nanner puddin.

That's chopped pork BBQ with vinegar and red pepper flake sauce to you yankees...

Well, good news and bad news after cleaning up three CVs, two from the axle I got from Patrick Hess up in Fuerth, I have two close to pristine CV joints! One side looked like it was damn near brand new.

Now, the bad news, 3/4" electric impact wrench from Bosch, nut didn't move. OK, lets try the heat method, off to OBI pick up a MAPP torch and grab an extra canister yesterday.

So since it is Sunday, and I'm not supposed to 'work' on Sunday's according to German law, I decided to work on the CV joints in the basement and then mess with the nut at around lunch. That way no one can bitch that I am making a lot of noise in the morning or during church time.

Lunch rolls around and I pull the car out and go to work on the nut with the torch; heat it up, let it cool, heat it up, let it cool...try to bust the nut. Nope. OK, let me see if I can put some more penetrating oil on her and then try. Nope. Well, I worked on it for close to 3 hours with no results, I do think I have slightly warped my 12" extension though. I was standing on the damn thing bouncing up and down with no love!

So the plan tomorrow is to find me a 3/4" breaker bar out to about 1 meter and a 3/4" 30mm socket and see if the longer bar will give me enough leverage. This damn thing is kicking my ass! Will try again tomorrow after I get some new tools to mess with this thing!

Well, That about sums it up. Oh and a little of

So I borrowed a cheater pipe and a long 1/2 inch breaker bar, they didn't have a 3/4 one at the auto craft shop. Came home at lunch determined to break the nut loose.

So, put on the socket, set up the bar and cheater pipe...SHIT. The damn male end that attaches to the socket literally broke off! So, maybe the breaker bar is just old and was on its way out, let me get my 12" extension with the sliding nipple part.

Get that on, set the extension all the way into the cheater bar; chock the tires, stand on the sucker....it turned! Oh wait....DAMN! The male end of this connection didn't break but, it twisted! Holy shit! Needless to say I am not a happy camper. So the new and revised plan:
1) re-assemble everything when I get the head back
2) run car to garage and have them bust the damn nut, then re-tighten.

Of course this presents a problem assembling the inner CV joint since it will be a challenge to get the circlip in. Any suggestions since I can't pull the axle off?

I don't know what to tell you about the CV joint. I do have a 3/4 drive socket and breaker bar at my house. I bought it in the Czech Republic the last time I was there after going through what you just desribed. I haven't had a chance to see if it is enough just yet.

Only one? Really? For your store of useless information Craftsmen 1/2" breaker bars evidently come from China these days, because they'll twist off at about 250 ft/lbs. Means they aren't that handy for getting the nuts off, but if you don't have a 225lb torque wrench to put them back on you can use a couple of those breaker bars to get the right torque. Lifetime guarantee at Sears.

A 3/4" breaker bar. cheater and heat are the best, but you can also try talking to one of the local aircooled VW repair shops. There are several different "torque multiplier" tools they use for axle and crank nuts that they might lend. Those guys will know exactly what you're going through so I'm pretty sure they'd be sympathetic.

Yeah, well, I at least have a 250 lb torque wrench, its a huge sucker too! I tried to find a 3/4 breaker at a tool and parts place locally, no joy. They did have some liqui moly stuff that is supposed to freeze the nut and add ceramic crap to loosen it. I got it and figured I would give it a try. I also found my last resort....NUT SPLITTER!! If all else fails, I bet I can find a nut easier than anything else; I'll see if I can locate the axle nut before I split it though.

Coming down my way anytime soon? Where in the Czech did you find it? I have a trip to Prague in the future I may have to go and find one.

I don't know if I can make it down there soon or not. I am leaving for Afghanistan 15 May. I will see what I can do.

Go to any of the Bauhaus stores in Prague. There is a really big store in Pruhonice exit 6 on the autobahn to Brno from Prague. Should be the D1. They have stuff the German stores don't even think about. They even had a 46mm socket for my VW bus drive shaft.

Chris,
Thanks for the info, will be heading to Prague end of May time frame after I get back from Africa and North Carolina. The guys at the autocraft shop gave me a 3/4" big ass ratchet and socket to try on it. I told them I didn't want to bust it but the boss man said, 'I got two.' I guess they don't do much with the 3/4" stuff so he isn't worried about it breaking. Gonna go back and grab the cheater pipe from him today and give it one last go before I try to split the nut.

I did ask him if he wanted me to buy him a new 1/2" breaker bar but he said not to worry about it. On a positive note, they got a media blaster cabinet in and up and running! I'll be using that for quite a few projects on the teener and my bike!

How big is the media blaster cabinet. I have some bus parts that wont fit in the small ones. I may have to make a trip just to use that. Which post is the auto shop on down there?

If you haven't been to Prague yet make sure you climb up the tower in the cathedral at the castle. It is something like 280 stairs to the top but the view of the city is the best in Prague.

The shop is on Panzer Kaserne; the blast cabinet is pretty big, I could probably fit an assembled case in the sucker. Wish they had gotten it before I started rebuilding the motor, I could have used it on a few things.

I'll remember the tower climb when I get there, thanks.

WOOHOO!!!
I BUSTED A NUT!! So, pulled the car out, engaged the Ebrake, chocked the tires and stood on the 3/4" ratchet with the cheater. Well, the tire spun. So my German neighbor, Uve, comes out and starts talking to my other neighbor, Yvonne, and he tells her that he may have something to help. Basically another electric impact wrench.

He goes off and gets it and comes back along with a stout rubber mat to put under the tire to keep it from spinning if we try the cheater bar again. I have gotten the car up and give him a 30mm socket and he starts to make all kinds of noise with his impact wrench trying to bust the nut.

It didn't budge, it did shake loose the axle so I can actually work on it now as it came out but the stub was still in the hub. So, I squirt it down again and he tries again, nope. No joy. On the one hand I am a bit disappointed, on the other hand I am happy cause I can now inspect the outer CV and assemble everything.

So, lets try the cheater and ratchet again. We put the tire back on, lower her down and back her out of the garage to give me room. We also back it onto the rubber mat and put the chock in a position so the rubber is sitting on the chock.

I hook up the wrench and cheater, Uve sits on the car and I stand on the cheater...CRACK!!!! OK, was that the ratchet or the nut? Raise the ratchet a click and push, she turns! The nut finally came loose! After I get it off and I tap out the stub I look at the threaded portion. You can see a space completely devoid of any loosening liquid. The liquid wrench and everything else never got between the nut and the threaded surface of the stub.

Regardless, I am happy, the wife is happy, we are all happy now time to get back to work! Thanks to all who provided some insight on this 'sticky' issue.

Quick question, as I cleaned and assembled the joint I noticed that some of the cages had a small 'lip' on one side whereas other cages did not. So I have two questions.

1. Why is there a lip?

2. Does it matter what side the lip is on i.e. facing the end of the axle or facing the the other way.

Stephen,
I have heard that when you remove the hubs, you can damage the bearings? Is this true? Hate to see you get this all back together only to find you need to undo it to replace the bearings.
Tom

Tom,
My mistake, it was the 'drive flange' that I pulled/tapped out of the hub. I confuse terms every now and again. If I were actually going to pull the hub it would be to replace the bearings. When I do a complete resto and take her all the way down I will replace the bearings then. Right now, just servicing CV joints.

Stephen,

I'm a bit late, but I'm glad you cracked that nut. I just went throught the same pain. The right site worked out well within a couple of hours but the right side was a real Schlampe.
Anyway, I ended up using my Dremmel and cut that nut of the stub - what a PITA!

Next step is rebuilding the CV joints tomorrow.

Servus und viel Spass in Deutschland!
Dragan

I may have said it already, but assembling anything but new is a time bomb and you lit the fuse.

115 in Texas, but they don't have the chamfer out of the main spindle toothed shaft, they just cut it shorter, so the USA - TEXAS ones are EASY to use a new snap ring to get the circlips on that come with the kit.

Getting the old spindle off the axle is the buster.

Cone washer was brainless.

Did 2 inner Axle side CV's in less than 2 hours. Make sue they are loose when greased.

Someone here did a pic story.

John

In the interest of getting as much info as possible into the World "cloud" I found a good article on CV maintenance that seems appropriate to those interested in this thread.

http://www.van-cafe.com/home/van/page_16_9...aintenence.html

good read...