Re: Rear driveshaft joint

[steveb@newkla.kla.com (Steven Buchholz)]

Eddi Jew wrote about periodic maintenance on CV joints:

> Trade off the cost of normal wear (finite life) over the cost of the labor
> for a few "re-lubes", which, to do right (i.e, make them last "almost 
> inndefinitely"), means to remove joint, degrease, repack, reseal boot. 
> Another tradeoff is the small risk in weakening the boot, causing it to 
> not seal when you least expect. The labor on that would be high.
> 
If the boot is intact the poor man's solution would be to scoop as much of 
the old grease out of the boot and joint as possible and repack with new 
grease.  The clamps are readily available and it is a pretty easy job.  
AAMOF the inner CV can be done without replacing a clamp!  You do stand 
the risk of compromising the boot integrity, but it does also give you a 
chance to monitor the boots to detect immanent failure.

Can you tell that I've done this?  I haven't done it very religiously, but 
when you count the total number of CV joints on a quattro you see that 
replacement could be an expensive proposition!

Steve Buchholz
s_buchho@kla.com
san Jose, CA (USA)