Vincent,

It’s possible that the wrong shafts were installed. One would need to remove and measure. The Bentley specs are in the photo. When I purchased my ‘89 auto trans Westy, I had noisy cv joints. Took them out to inspect and found that it had the manual trans axles installed. Replaced them with the correct length and all is good now

> On Jul 17, 2018, at 8:59 AM, Vincent Dow <ianvincentdow@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Hello rollers,
> 
> I finally got *Modesto* into a garage here in greater Montreal to
> repack/replace three torn CV boots.
> 
> I discovered the boots were shot on my drive from Los Angeles to Montreal
> back in late April.
> 
> The Joints and boots were sold to me by my vw mechanic here in Quebec -
> just under two years ago. Needless to say I was disappointed with that
> performance (paid $650 Canadian + tax = not cheap)
> 
> So a week ago I brought him my replacement Rockford boots from T3 - and we
> talked about different quality cv boots etc. I wanted a break from those
> guys on the replacement because the ones he sold me didn’t last. But he
> wouldn’t hear about it.
> 
> (I reluctantly agreed to pay them three hours for the reinstall)
> 
> As his guy was bolting the repacked CV axles on, he cussed and hissed that
> the boots were too short - making it almost impossible for him to get the
> inside bolts started in the threads. He was glaring at me, as if I’d
> brought the problem into their shop with the Rockford 40mm boots.
> He finally got a couple bolts in and was able to pull the whole thing into
> place with the pressure of torquing...
> 
> Then this thought occurred to me: is it possible the axles themselves are
> too short? Those axles are the rebuilt replacements he sold me - not my
> originals.
> 
> Alternatively: is it possible the wrench-man installed (clipped) the small
> end of the boot too far down the axle from the bolt-end ? ) causing the
> boots to be under extreme tension? And probably fail within six months?
> 
> BTW the van is an 1982 aircooled with DK transmission.
> 
> I’ve heard that automatic vanagon cannot use manual-trans axles (and vice
> versa)
> 
> Are there more than one (length) of manual cv axles our there?
> Could it be my previous cv boots also tore because they were being pulled
> apart rather than resting in a relaxed wAy?
> 
> I wish I had my old axles back suddenly!
> Tough summer for the van.