Sorry John, you must swap axles side to side on the vehicle, swapping
ends on the same side does nothing.
This is long established list knowledge. It used to come up regularly
but it has been quite a while now.
The mistake in your discussion is that there are no rotating bearings
inside the CV, at least in the sense you mean. The large balls ride in
grooves that are sideways. When the CV axle is under tension from the
tranny output flanges the balls are forced against one side of the
grooves. The lateral grooves are there so that when the suspension
allows the wheel to go up and down the inner and outer CV joint can then
change angles with respect to each other. There is a groove in the inner
part for each groove in the outer part and a single large ball rides in
each pair of grooves. The large balls do not turn in the grooves just
because the vehicle is moving. They primarily move in the groove when
the wheel goes up and down. The direction of rotation of the whole joint
is not the wear issue. The wear is caused by the twisting force on the
joint forcing the balls to ride on the same side of the groove whenever
the vehicle is moving forward under engine power.

Mark

John Rodgers wrote:

> Al Brase and Dennis Haynes have been kind enough to express differing
> opinions on this so in response here is further explanation from my
> point of view for benefit of The List Membership.
>
> My perception of this is that we are talking principally about  the goal
> of changing the direction of rotation of the bearing and axle when we
> speak of swapping them to opposite sides of the vehicle. This is to take
> advantage of changing the wear pattern on the bearings to extend the
> life of the bearings.
>
> It is an easy thing to swap them to opposite sides  of the vehicle - and
> miss changing the direction of rotation!!
> This is why I suggest keeping the shafts on the same side of the vehicle
> as it is easy to induce confusion.

................................