Date:         Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:16:01 -0700
Reply-To:     Keith Ovregaard <kovregaard@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Keith Ovregaard <kovregaard@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Bad CV or Wheel Bearing?
Comments: To: syncro@yahoogroups.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

Hi all

Just back from a weekend road trip and the VikingWagen like a top
until I heard an intermittent "knock, knock, knock" from the right
rear undercarriage. The sound was at the same speed as the wheel
rotation and it was more pronounced when turning slightly to the
right. My first thought was that it was a bad CV. But I had just
serviced all the CV only 3000 miles ago and the wear was very minimal.
Maybe it's a bad wheel bearing. I've experienced that before on a
Dodge Van, but the sound was more of a grindy "RRRRrrrrrRRRRrrrrr"
rather than knocking noise. After about 45 minutes of driving, I
stopped again to jack up the wheel. I gently put it into gear to spin
the wheel and no noise. Then I grabbed the tire to check for free play
and it was a bit sloppy. Hmmmm, bad wheel bearing or loose axel nut?
Is it supposed to be that sloppy? A local mechanic put a impact wrench
to it and was barely able to budge it, so I did torque it correctly
when I last did the rear brake work. After arriving safely back home,
I pulled the right rear CV axel and test drove with the decoupler
engaged. No noise, but maybe that is due to the intermittent nature of
the issue.

At this point, I am leaning towards a bad CV because, even though
serviced recently, I believe they may be the originals in the rear. At
almost 150k miles, it's time they would fail, right? Maybe one of the
cages cracked? What keeps me wondering is the Should I consider myself
lucky that it did not fail after I drove it another 300 miles on
mostly curvy steep coastal highway, about 10 miles of moderate off
road, 1 mile of deep soft sand and forded one stream?

Any thoughts or tests that would tell for sure which part is failing?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Keith O
1990 Syncro Westy