The hard turning of your vehicle in a circle with the steering wheel at
the stops puts a side load on the CV's and causes a knocking.  In fact,
if you could be under your  vehicle at the same time, you would probably
see the axle shaft jump back and forth end to end. You have  some built
in play there anyway - about 1/2 inch or so - and when your balls and
grooves are worn it's worse and your balls  knock. I think it has to do
with the fact that the inside wheel and the outside wheel turn at
different rates. But it definitely is a means to determine wear.

John Rodgers
88 GL Driver

pdooley wrote:
> Does the parking lot test work on rear drive vehicles?
> The front wheels may be turned to the lock, but the CV orientation hasn't
> changed.
> Just wondering...
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> John Rodgers
> Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 2:56 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: CV problem?
>
> Ed,
>
> Depending on your source, you may very well have bad CV's, or it could
> be a number of other things. Get in a large parking lot, turn the
> steering when to the stops - one direction then the other - as you
> driver in a tight circle. This will sometimes let you know about the
> condition of the CV's by the knocking sound you will hear It shouldn't
> be there on good CV's.
>
> I don't like re-built CV's because to drill  out, machine, and install
> of bigger ball bearings  is to change the geometry of the CV. And I'm
> not convinced anyone can do it right and make money given the price
> charged for re-builts vs the labor.and machine tool costs. I would stay
> away from rebuilt's on replacements kit such as this.
>
> Just my $0.02
>
> John Rodgers
> 88 GL Driver
>
> Edward Maikranz wrote:
>
>> Ok, I had a torn boot and heard some clunking, so I replaced both rear
>>
> half
>
>> axels with brand new ones.
>> Now I have even more clunking. Very noticeable at slower speeds while
>>
> making
>
>> left hand turns, also sometimes I hear it when starting out from a
>>
> complete
>
>> stop,
>>
>> the vehicle is an 87 with a manual transmission.
>>
>> Do I have bad cv's or should I look elsewhere?
>> Thanks,
>> Ed
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>