You should be pulling them every 75K or  so for maintenance (clean and
grease) anyway.  Makes sense to reverse them at that time.

At 375,000 miles, I still have three of the originals, BTW.

Karl Wolz

----- Original Message -----
From: "gary hradek" <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 8:38 AM
Subject: Re: rotating cvs and axles from left to right

> Seems to me that rotating in theory should work.
> Most of the milage on the van is done in the forward
> direction.   The force against the joint is at its
> greatest when we start  in motion and when each time
> we shift and increase the motion.   This is a
> asymetric force that will wear one side of the joint
> more quickly than the other.  The more important thing
> is keep the joint with good grease and replace them
> when they knock.   As hard as it is to remove those
> numerous hex or star bolts I would only rotate them if
> I were planning to remove them for some other reason.
>               gary
> Date:    Tue, 14 May 2002 23:07:15 -0400
> From:    Bradley Flubacher <flub@ADELPHIA.NET>
> Subject: Re: rotating cvs and axles from left to right
>
> I tend to agree with this. It seems the way they are
> designed, they
> should get equal wear regardless of installation and
> direction of
> travel...
>
> Brad
>
>
> developtrust wrote:
>
> >I've seen this same controversy often on the list.
> Some say swapping
> allows
> >bearings to run on a different track thus extending
> life and
> minimizing
> >wear. Is this a myth? Does anyone really know for
> certain? In my
> thinking
> >swapping sides or reversing does not change anything
> except perhaps
> the
> >direction of bearing spin.
> >
> >William
>
>
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