[V8] C4 100 -- v8 interchange, and Front CV questions.

[toml99 at todomundo.com]

I would steer clear of any complete axle sold as new

Hey Allan, when I saw that, I was wondering who's making new axles  
for these cars.  When I checked into the links, they say "reman", and  
one of them tout's their "chasing of the threads" as it's some kind  
of magic to make the install flawless.  Sounds like many reman axles,  
that they just clean up the worthy ones/regrease/new boots, and good  
to go.  No talk of new cages/etc.  What struck me was them listing  
"manual" axles.  If I had a Manual axle that was beyond repair, and  
they could verify the length/etc....for $60, I might consider it.

Since we are talking about axles, just wanted to verify something.   
The Manual car's had the same length axles, correct?  When the old  
saab's got noisy(they had a "driver cup" that was mounted to the  
tranny with 6 hex bolts) and the tripod bearings slipped in there and  
the inner boot was just hose clamped on which made for easy front end  
work), you could swap the "drivers"(as the axles were different  
sizes), and get rid of the noise.  All the wear was on the forward  
part of the tripod/driver housing.  Tripod needle bearing units  
didn't really wear if they stayed greased.  Might make some noise in  
reverse, but who cares.  Since the 5-speed has equal axles, has  
anyone tried to swap sides and see if their noise goes away?   
Regardless, all the wear is on the front of the tripod bearing   
housing(inner) and so you might get another 150K out of your inners  
if you do the swap.....any 5-speed people done this?....Tom