[Vwdiesel] Advice needed on left front wheel issues

[LBaird119 at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/12/2009 9:07:05 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
dieselwesty at yahoo.com writes:

> 1.  But, the left front wheel has a good bit of play in and out, as if 
> the splin nut is not on tight enough.


  That's entirely possible.  If it's tight then the bearing's shot, or 
someone 
put a washer in a wrong place or such.

> 2.  The wheel almost seemed to wobble as it was spinning up in the air so 
> there are issues on this side for sure.
> 3.  In addition, the short axle seems original and should be replaced as 
> both boots have cracks, some leakage of greese and I do hear a bad CV joint 
> noise when I really turn sharply and moving slow, so must be this side.  I 
> replace the long axle about 20K ago as it has split boots and I figued that 
> was the side the noise was coming from, but it was not.

  I've never done an axle except in Subaru's.  Sure a new outer joint 
is more than most reman axles, and sure it's not guaranteed for 
however long but guess what.  You don't have to replace it 2 or 
3 times in 100K miles plus it's much faster to replace in the first 
place since you don't have to deal with pulling and torquing back 
a half dozen inner joint bolts each side!

> 4.  The pinion oil flange on the left side is leaking pretty good and 
> needs replaced again, it was replace about 30K ago.

  The pinion doesn't have an oil seal.  It's the driven shaft internally.
;-)  If the seals are prematurely wearing out on the output shaft 
seals then check how wobbly your flanges are.  My Rabbit's are 
really bad yet they don't leak.  :-)  90mm ones aren't available 
but I suppose 100mm ones still are, which should be what you 
have.  The splines tend to wear and that could make for seal failure.
The splines on the output shafts are harder and typically aren't a 
problem.  Likewise the bearings in there aren't too likely to fail.  If 
they did then it's an internal replacement and you're supposed to 
re-setup the pinion depth and all that but since they're a precision 
bearing you can in most cases get away with simply replacing them.

> 5.  I have a new strutt for this side and upper mounting bushings, so can 
> put them in when I do all of this.
> 

  Good deal. 
  Find out why that wheel's wobbling though.  Not good at all.  Isn't it 
fun when both wheels sound about the same?  Not sure if both are 
bad or both are good since they're not exactly quiet running gear!
     Loren