VIN vs. chassis # (and blown CV joints)

[Ti Kan]

Craig D. Niederst writes:
> My brother managed to blow both of the CV joints out of the '86 CGT, so
> I'm looking to buy a pair of remanufactured half shafts. I checked
> locally at the AutoZone and Advance Auto Parts places, and they both run
> ~$80 per side plus a $45 core charge (with a lifetime guarantee). When
> looking up the parts, the computer asks before or after chassis # 81D077974=
>  (which according to them is on the center of the firewall). Unfortunately,=
>  that number corresponds to nothing that I can see on the CGT. The last 9 c=
> haracters of my VIN are 4GA141877, which looks nothing like the chassis # t=
> hey list. So do I basically buy the one with the later chassis # range? Als=
> o, they are out of stock of the driver side shaft. Are there other sources =
> of these shafts online that are reasonable (Blau @ $220 a side is not reaso=
> nable IMHO). TIA.

Looks like they were looking at parts for an early type 81 (4000 sedan
with four cylinder), not for a late-ish 5-cyl Coupe.  For example, my
'80 4000 4-cyl has the old style VIN of 81A0003561.

-Ti
2003 A4 1.8T multitronic
2001 S4 biturbo 6-sp
1984 5000S turbo
1980 4000 2.0 5-sp
--
    ///  Ti Kan                Vorsprung durch Technik
   ///   AMB Laboratories, Sunnyvale, CA. USA
  ///    ti at amb.org
 //////  http://www.amb.org/ti/
///