Last weekend I FINALLY got around to doing something on my dads car again. I put his axles back together ! Upon assembly I noticed there were 2 different cages and two different sized bearings. Obviously the O.D. of the cages was the same but the spots where the bearings "snap" in was different. To make things even more interesting I also had some 944 axles (CV's) apart. Upon examination of them I find the larger 914 bearings are the same as the 944 bearings ! What gives with the smaller diamater bearings ? are the bearings year specific or maybe inside/outside specific ???????

I don't know if all of the 914 CV's were the same. I do know that my local Auto Electrical place also rebuilds axles. They hone out the recesses that the bearings ride in and install larger bearings. That could explain it.

The cage is WAY beefier, too, right?

I'll check it tomorrow but I dont recall the cage being much if any beefier. The 944 cage obviously id a lrger O.D. and is a bit thicker. I might even take pics if you want

I've been screwing around with the CVs on my car. I broke a joint a few weeks ago, and my car's been on jackstands ever since.

I drove 75 miles to get a rebuildable axle. When I get it home I find out two things.

1) my original cv joint isn't broken, it just fell apart for some reason... WTF?

2) The new axle has smaller balls and WAY beefier cages. Like .075" thicker.

Meaurements and pics !!

For comparison.

This is the 914 cage that uses the larger bearing beside a 944 cage that uses the same bearing

I would wonder after finding what I have, if maybe your CV that fell apart might have been miss matched parts. ie: smaller bearings in a larger cage

Nope. The parts are right. I put it under a cmm, and the cage is distorted slightly, indicating that it bent open when it failed.

I have the exact same situation that you do. I originally had the large ball/small cage combo, and the new-to-me-axle has the big beefy cages with the small balls. I'm going to call the guy that I got it from and ask which car it came out of. He has about 60 914s parted out on his private junk yard.


AND. Before you mix them up, the housings are different too. I had to cmm 3 housings to find the right two to use.

I assume the grooves the balls ride in are the difference?? Biggest problem I have now is I had 2 sets of 914 axles torn down and 1 set of 944's. Somewhere in all this I have misplaced 3 of the inner pieces that slide onto the axle