Fellow VWers,
	Well thanks Joel Walker, Kyle Wade, John Sirutus, Ken Hooper,
Chris Venema, and Geosh Fathauer for the advice on my CV joint!  This is a
summary of what I found out about bum CV joints for anyone interested:

1.)  Bad CV joints make a clunking noise and not a grinding noise.
2.)  Often times they can be brought back to life even when they are
clunking just by dissasembly, cleaning, greasing and putting on a new boot
(i.e. the noise will usually go away after the cleaning and greasing provided
that the damage is not really bad).
 3.)  It is not worth it to scrimp on cheap CV boots.  They can tear in
one year, leading to another very greasy replacement job.
 4.)  CVs can last a really long time (300,000 miles the legend goes) if
kept greased and the boots are not torn.  Suggested greasing intervals
ranged from 30,000 miles to 75,000 miles, or until the boots are torn, or
they start making noise.
5.)  Chris Venema and others came up with the idea to flip the CVs after
cleaning and greasing them so that they wear on the other
side.
6.)  One person drove their bus until the CV failed (i.e. until the
tranny did not tranfer any energy to the wheels).  So I guess that is the
worst that could happen if you don't fix it.
7.)  One person went to a vw mechanic who told them that the clunking
noise was due to a failing transmission, which was a $1000 job.  It turned
out to just be a bad CV joint.  So I guess it pays to be aware and do your
own maintenance.

So after all that advice, I think I'll buy some grease, two new good
quality boots, clean, grease, flip and replace the CVs.

Thanks,

John

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John Grunkemeier 			E-mail: grunke@u.washington.edu
Center for Bioengineering		work: (206) 685-2440
Box 351750, University of Washington 	home: (206) 522-3557
Seattle, WA 98195 			FAX: (206) 543-3778
USA