Date:         Wed, 3 Apr 1996 22:15:14 -0500 
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         vwbus@TCPBBS.COM
Subject:      Another Little CV Question

Somebody please answer this for me, it is driving me crazy.
I dissasembled the axles on the '85 tonight to replace boots,
and repack joints.  I am so anal about these that I always
scribe the inner and outer races and the cage with a carbide
scribe and even track the locations of the balls.  Well funny
thing is somebody has been here before on 2 of them the inner
races are incorrectly assembled with the chamfer on the splines
not facing in toward the shoulder on the shaft.  But the thing I
can't remember and that neither my Haynes Bus, or Bentley Vanagon
manual will tell me is the orientation of the cage.  The cage is
chamfered on one edge and not on the other and on 2 the chamfer
is out, on the other 2 it is in.  My gut instinct is chamfer in to allow
more shaft clearance somehow.  Funny thing is that in the Haynes
manual one photo clearly shows the chamfer out toward the circlip
when they remove the circlip but the flat side is out upon
re-installation.
Groove on outer race is out on all mine as it should be.  2 that I took
off the '78 to replace have chamfer in, but they had been messed with
before as well.  The only new part I have is a transform rebuild, and
to complicate things it has their "race" cage with no chamfer
whatsoever.
Does any of this matter? I am best to leave as they are, they have been
fine obviously.  That chamfer is there for a reason for clearance at
full
droop, I just can't decide if it is to clearance the shaft or the
outside side
of the inner race.  On a side note, the CV's with 72k are generally in
great
shape except for the cages which barely hold their balls, I'm going to
do the reverse em shaft to shaft trick as to me this looks like a 100%
foolproof way to double the wear, as the track on both races should
reverse it's angle and the cage should wear on the opposite side of each
ball cutout.  Anyway any insight appreciated before I put this mess back
together with grease.

John
vwbus@tcpbbs.com