> 
> It used to be that when a joint went bad I would replace it and that was it.
> Now I get into the habit of looking at all of the joints and just checking
> them to be sure.  I think that it should be part of regular maintenance of
> checking the joints instead of waiting until the damage is done.  If a joint
> is not badly damage I have been able to extend its life by cleaning up and 
> repacking it.  I have done this several times.  I did this on my rabbit truck
> (the noises were LOUD especially driving for 50 miles) and got 20K miles out
> of one bad joint before replacing it.  I have not tried flipping the joints
> around but it seems to be a good idea.  
> 
........
> 
> Jonathan
> -----------------------------------------
> Jonathan Dove   jdove@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
> 82 Rabbit PU, 83 GTI, 85 Vanagon, 87 Golf
> -----------------------------------------
>
 One of my cv joints started banging so loudly, it sounded like someone was
hitting the side of my Bus with a baseball bat!  I removed them, cleaned
and inspected them thoroughly, repacked them with grease, reinstalled them
in the same orientation, and so far they've lasted almost 10,000 miles.
When I inspected them, a few of the balls had started to turn slightly
blue (hmmm....taken out of context, this would sound like an entirely
different subject!), but, given the price of new ones, I decided to go for
it anyway.  So far, so good.

Dave
'71 Westfalia & SB