Re: Rear driveshaft joint

[raf40@oes.amdahl.com (Richard Funnell)]

Steve,

>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)

My old 5000T had about 115K miles when I sold it, and I never changed the
CVs.  My urQ has about 95-100K miles with the original CVs.  I wonder
whether it is necessary to regrease them.  I do get boots changed ASAP if
they get torn, and every chance I get, I look for the telltale line of
grease above the boots to see if one has failed.

Richard Funnell,
San Jose, California
'83 urQ