Tom L. Neal wrote: > < Jetta CV joint story snipped > > Another odd CV story is that I asked the Olds dealer about repacking the > CV joints on a '91 Olds 98 at 60K original miles and he thought I had > flipped. "Those are sealed and we don't open them." Really? So what > gives with General Motors CV joints? Just run them until they die? They > don't die? Right. The entire rest of the car except the engine has already > died at one time or another so why are the CV joints special? The Olds 98 is rear wheel drive right (with a front engine that is) ? Then the CV joints on it are on the drive shaft running from the front engine/tranny to the rear differential housing. This setup puts more distance between the two CV joints than on Vanagon drive axles, or any front wheel drive car. So the longer distance means that as the rear suspension goes up and down, the angles that the CV's must assume are much smaller. The CV's movements along the shaft's axis are also smaller. So the smaller demands made of those CV's may allow sealed units. Now I'm no CV expert, but it can be shown by geometry that the CV's on front-engine/rear-differential cars don't move as much. I've never had to work on that style CV, though I replaced many universal joints, which is what was used on American drive shafts at least up to early 70's. But the American drive shaft CV's I recall seeing when I worked as a grease monkey as a kid, were big things that probably would take up too much room to use at both ends of a front-wheel drive car's axles. IMHO of course. Dave |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.