I have all four apart and clean. Haynes says "if they show any wear, replace the joint". Easy to do if new ones were available. All of mine show some wear. They are likely 30 years old. Two of the four show the most wear. One has some pitting on the balls and outside of the cage. A couple have some "dents" in the ball grooves of the outer ring. The others are just "shiny" in spots.
How do I evaluate and decide whether to repack and install, or scrounge for replacements. I have visions of inspecting dozens of the foul things before finding a good one. There is no dirtier job on a 914 than disassembling and cleaning a CV joint!

Jim Im in you same boat (sort of) quick answer replace all your balls with ceramics.

I may have some good used ones. I'll put the helper (not Mark) on it this afternoon, get a bunch clean, and look 'em over. I also have a rebuilder locally who might be able to help. I rarely ask him, because most of the stuff I need is still available new. Ask me first of the week! The Cap'n

Back to my original question, how do I determine if a used joint is OK to reinstall or needs replacement? Seems to me the Haynes "replace if it shows any wear" is too high a standard today.

Hey there,

Well if I were you I'd try to find some spares from other people, just compare and put the best ones in, make sure not to mix and match balls and cages and stuff, because AFAIK these parts are machined to belong together within close tolerance.

Mittelmotor shows CV's as available for 89 euro's it doesn't say if they're new or used. But for comparison a new CV for an old VW golf is also around 90 euro's. (I haven't had a 914 CV next to a Golf CV but maybe they interchange... u never know)

Good luck

Jacco

bump...

captain, if you come up with a rebuilder I would ship/pay for getting a pair of mine rebuilt.

brant

besides the obvious clunking, if you move the joint in and out and it hangs up in the fully extended or fully compresed you probably have galling bad enough to need a look see. I am in the middle of an engine/tranny swap and need to work on one of the CV's, I'll shoot some pics of that one and the one I intend to replace it with - hopefully this weekend.