Has anyone ever tried sourcing just the ball bearings for our CV joints? I went thru the trouble of breaking a few extra cv joints down and cleaning everything up a few months ago, now just realized that I secured all parts in a dry place except the chrome ball bearings . Needless to say they’ve been rained on several time and look terrible. Perhaps they can be cleaned, I’ll need to look into that (suggested methods ? ) - but assuming they’re scored or peeling chrome, are there any chances of purchasing these somewhere?


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I have some ball bearings from CV’s that are worn. I just did mine and had 2 sets of axles to work with so I chose the best 4 cv’s and have no use for the others. The balls seem fine but I did not look at them that closely. You can have them for shipping cost.

McMaster Carr is the easiest place to find stuff. But you're going to pay for it and will have way too many.

Will be interesting to see how off the shelf bearings hold up. It was my understanding that these were hardened. I may be wrong.

Sounds like a time bomb to me. As far as I knew mixing any bearing parts is a big time no no. The precision and wear in involved with any bearing is very tight

Agree on that one. I think the diameter of the balls were not the same across different cv’s so did not mix up parts.

I just had a CV fail, if you want I'll send you the other three.

I think so also not worth risking IMO.

Well it is a thing apparently, a little research led me to a few companies that sell specific ball bearings for CV joints, and yes there is a certain grade/type that’s specific to CV joint use. Here’s one place that’s interesting… with a 930 Porsche bearing replacement available:

https://www.kartek.com/parts/replacement-ty...dividually.html

https://www.kartek.com/parts/replacement-po...dividually.html

https://www.jbugs.com/SV/image/Type-4-CV-JOINT-Specs.jpg


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False Alarm!! I’m an idiot sometimes.. the bearings I found out in the rain were the ones I’d actually panned out as not ideal. So they were the bad ones that I had and should have been thrown away, thought I did. So I got several complete sets to rebuild including a complete set of 108's too which I also forgot about - thanks everyone for your great (and typical) generosity!

You're not an idiot. Probably just a senior like most of us here. I can't remember half of the absent minded things I have done these past few years.