Roger,

What a story.  I also changed my rear brakepads during the axle replacement
but I can't imagine brakes would cause a consistent hum/vibration at speeds
over 45 mph.

Thanks,
Blake

On 3/20/07, Roger Sisler <rogersisler2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> One of my rebulit axel was empi. I have about 45K on them with out
> problems. I dont even think about them.Rebuilders will go out of business
> if all them are bad.I dont think they are all bad. I think a percentage of
> them are assembled incorrectly by people making $5.15/hour.Rebuilders work
> with percentages, like this.Especially with a/c compressors. I imagine the
> only part that gets rebuilt is the inclusion of slightly oversized steel
> balls. It does not take much wear in the races to cause them to go bad.New
> rubber boots.Do get new bolts , as the hex heads strip  easily. If this
> happens in the black cave, bad news.
>
> Oh yeah, I remember now. The axles kept coming loose. Both at the drive
> flanges(not the black hole(wonder why)).I would have to go under and
> tighten them up every few months.Grease was splattered everywhere ,several
> times, over a year or so.One day they were ok, and the next, grease
> splattered everywhere.What the ???? Last year ,I was 75 miles from home
> and one axel completely broke off at the drive flange.All 6 bolts were
> sheared off and the threads remained in the flange. Game over for the
> drive flange.Almost game over for my Vanagon and maybe more.Can you imagin
> the axel swinging around at 60mph? Wouldnt you know,75 miles from home and
> with a Vanagon that would not run. The last bolt sheared 100 feet from a
> doner vanagon that I had bought on ebay.I was going to strip it out.Now I
> had to , but for different reasons. I didnt know I had a problem till the
> last bolt sheared.I was on a dirt road and got stuck in a rut and the bolt
> sheared there.0 mph I swapped drive flanges/bolts and I was ok. When I got
> home, I put a bit of JB weld in the hex holes on each of the bolts. Know
> what??? I have never had problems since.I still use them and am not afraid
> of them.Just had to keep the evil Gleprocauns off them.They are ok now and
> were ok before.Strange story.
>
>
> I would just remove one,and see if they are flexable and leave it at that.
> You say that this may not be the issue.Maybe belts or something? Did you
> remove anything else while doing the cv swap?
>