Anyone know where i can get a new set of CV's (all four) or a full axle without spending a fortune? Or at least can find them period?

Thanks!
Bill

I am sure any of our friendly vendors.... have rebuilt shafts...

Try PP, try PP, try PP, HPH, PHP, and HTML.



Nothing? They all usually have something, or can get it.


M

You can get them off a parts car LOL

If you need one, make sure you're in eastern Massachussets and at an ECR, Ed Morrow may give you one.

I have a small local rebuilder who can make you up a set. I've seen his operation, and trust him to do a really good job. Prolly gonna cost more than the new ones I offered a couple of months ago, but then they're all gone, so you have to do what you can. The Cap'n

partsamerica.com has them for around 100 an axle. they are rebuilt units supposedly better than oem.

if you do not hot rod it around, I believe it is VW Bug joints fit the shaft (or maybe VW 411/412 series?) at anyrate they have smaller balls, but seem to last at least if you do not hot raod around in your car. It is a cheap alternative for now.

QUOTE (dmenche914 @ Feb 16 2005, 07:41 PM)

but seem to last at least if you do not hot raod around in your car. .

When I rebuilt my car I replaced a trashed CV joint with one of these from Chirco, a local VW parts shop. It's slightly different than the 914 joint, I think I had to relocate one of the roll pins but outside of that it fits. Hasn't failed yet after frequent hard acceleration with my V8 (I'm sorry but I can't help it).

QUOTE (nsyr @ Feb 16 2005, 08:40 PM)

partsamerica.com has them for around 100 an axle. they are rebuilt units supposedly better than oem.

No offense to the poster, but there is no country on
earth that has low enough labor and machine shop
costs to take 2 cv's, really do anything to them, clean,
re-assemble, put on axles, re-grease, and sell
through a middleman.

What does rebuild mean? Probably just clean for
these guys. Even if you were to work on them, you
would have to machine the raceways oversize, get
new balls and a new cage, then re-harden the pieces.

Good luck for $100. Go to Hershey swap meet you
may find used ones cheap.

When I rebuilt my car I replaced a trashed CV joint with one of these from Chirco, a local VW parts shop. It's slightly different than the 914 joint, I think I had to relocate one of the roll pins but outside of that it fits. Hasn't failed yet after frequent hard acceleration with my V8 (I'm sorry but I can't help it).

I just got mine back last week. $400 CDN for the pair.
After letting the FLAPS guy send them all over the place with no luck a guy came into
my work on a completely different matter and handed me his business card and
it said "front wheel drive something" so I showed him the axles and told him what
they were on and he said NO PROBLEM I can do them. Turns out he has an old 911.
They had to do some custom machining for the gaskets and the dowel pins.
Looks like they did a very good job.
So if there is anybody in the Toronto area that needs them done let me know
and I will get his name and number.

QUOTE (mskala @ Feb 16 2005, 06:44 PM)

QUOTE (nsyr @ Feb 16 2005, 08:40 PM) partsamerica.com has them for around 100 an axle. they are rebuilt units supposedly better than oem. No offense to the poster, but there is no country on earth that has low enough labor and machine shop costs to take 2 cv's, really do anything to them, clean, re-assemble, put on axles, re-grease, and sell through a middleman. What does rebuild mean? Probably just clean for these guys. Even if you were to work on them, you would have to machine the raceways oversize, get new balls and a new cage, then re-harden the pieces. Good luck for $100. Go to Hershey swap meet you may find used ones cheap.

This really has nothing to do with the part in question, but this is turning into a pet peeve of mine...

There are PLENTY of countries on this earth with labor costs low enough to turn out something as simple as a rebuilt 914 axle for under $100. There are countries where unskilled labor can be had for $1 per DAY, and it's pretty unlikely someone who's been trained disassemble a CV and replace the ball bearings (rarely is any more required), grease, and refit new boots, is going to command more than $5 per DAY in wages in such a country. How many axles could a person produce in one day for that $5? If they do only ONE, and you can produce a container-load (let's say 10,000, I'm making up a number) each month with 300 such employees, that's $50K per month in wages for $500K in product at $50 each wholesale. Transport for one container from Brisbane, Australia to LA is about $1500, so figure a container from Indonesia (say) is about the same. Figure about $1K to pay some US truck driver to get it to your warehouse, and $10K to ship them out to retail stores. You're still making over $400K on the deal, even after accounting for transport of ball bearings, grease, CV boots, and core axles to your factory in cheap labor land. With a cost structure like that, you could pay someone $20/day to do this in someplace exotic like, oh, MEXICO and still make out like a bandit, esp. considering your transport costs into the US would fall.

Could you do this only for 914 axles? No, not a big enough market. Could you do it if you rebuilt axles for lots of other makes, too. You bet. For the purposes of rebuilding them, the differences between halfshafts is pretty small, basically requiring you to stock different sized ball bearings and CV boots to rebuild pretty much any of the fwd or rwd or 4wd halfshafts used.

To remove all politics from this issue, I'd expect someone could set up a factory in, say, Iowa, to do the same thing and still make a good pile of money. With more than $30 per unit to spend and still make a profit, that's a lot of wiggle room. A semi-automated position in Alabama manned by a well-trained worker could probably crank out 100 units a day, or $5000 worth at wholesale prices, and the worker would be quite happy to take home only $150-200 of that, leaving a lot left over for transport, distribution, paying off the machinery, heating the building, paying sales staff, etc.

I've said it before: economies of scale WORK.

I talked to a guy that worked in a retail shop doing repairs and custom work on leather coats and such (and had a nice business in the sex trade, of course). He looked at a motorcycle jacket I had and told me it would cost him about $2000 to replicate it. His jaw hit the desk when I told him it cost me $400 new, made in Germany. At the time, a Pakistani-made jacket could be had for as little as $150.

This is not the local machine shop but a company that specializes in it.

The company that remanufactures (rebuilds) the axles

James, I'm not going to argue with your economics, but what
you said about the parts for rebuild is not the same as what
I've seen. What I've seen for bad old CV's, they always had
a large wear area on both the races. This would not be
something you can fix with new balls and be good to go.
I also have a 944 CV from a few weeks ago where one area
is pitted very badly, however all the other parts are fine.

If my experience is not normal, and you can 'rebuild' these
in the manner you're talking, then I'll agree with you.

Even with manufacturing new races, in the cheap country model we're making a profit of $30 per unit. More than enough to make new races for some percentage of the units. If 50% of the units require new races, we have to be able to make a race for $30 per unit to break even. At a $10/day labor rate for a skilled machinist in our cheap country (2x what the assembler makes, you'll remember), and assuming $10 in materials, that's $20 per unit if he makes only one per day. Plenty, and my estimates were deliberately very pessemistic. Still low but plausible numbers would be more like $1 for materials and 10 units if made on hand-run machinery, dropping cost to $2 per unit, which means our unit cost for the completed axle would be something like $15 instead of $13, and we're selling it for $50. Move the plant to Mexico and unit costs rise to $25. Move it to the US and they rise to maybe $40 (assuming automation).

My point is you cannot estimate costs by looking at how much a local craftsman would charge to make ONE of the same thing. Once a factory process is built up, costs fall dramatically, either because cheap semi-skilled labor is employed, or because of automation (so you can spread those costs over thousands of units). There are hundreds of examples of goods in US stores that would cost 10-1000x more to replicate as a one off than they cost when made by a dedicated factory. DVD players are now under $50 NEW at retail. How much would it cost to make ONE DVD player from scratch? Yet some significant number of factories are making them for $20 or less EACH. You tell me, what's more complex to make, a DVD player with hundreds of high-precision parts, or rebuilding an axle with less than a 20 parts total, none of which are particularly critical in tolerance or precision? And the DVD players are being made in relatively expensive places like Taiwan (GDP/capita of $23K/year, or only slightly below a Western European country), rather than Mexico, with a GDP/capita of only $9K/year. Or Bangladesh, at under $2K/year.

My axle scenario is deliberately inflating prices to make a point. A good operation SHOULD be able to do the job for less money than it takes to make a DVD player, so assume $10 or less per unit. Meaning that $100 axle is marked up 10x from the manufacturer, so while you're complaining they couldn't possibly do a good job so cheaply, in reality, they're stealing you blind...

WOW!

Ok - the use is for a track car, so modified and cheap rebuild solutions are out of the question. I dont "mind" spending money if it is the right thing. Nothing makes less sense to me than getting a cheaper mechanical part that will run a higher risk of failure, as it will alwyas fail a tthe wrong time.

Checked on Pelican and GPR - they show as NLA. I will not got to AA.

Any other sources? I am looking for either new or fully rebuilt that i could send my core axle to.

Thanks
Bill

QUOTE (1973914 @ Feb 17 2005, 09:43 AM)

WOW! Ok - the use is for a track car, so modified and cheap rebuild solutions are out of the question. I dont "mind" spending money if it is the right thing. Nothing makes less sense to me than getting a cheaper mechanical part that will run a higher risk of failure, as it will alwyas fail a tthe wrong time. Checked on Pelican and GPR - they show as NLA. I will not got to AA. Any other sources? I am looking for either new or fully rebuilt that i could send my core axle to. Thanks Bill

Sorry for the hijack.

Talk to Cap'n Krusty about his local rebuilder. If he vouches for them, I'd trust them.

There are some options in 911 parts, but they're not a bolt-on; you'd need to so some modifications. The CVs only recently became NLA, so it may take awhile for another supplier to get going.