> 1. How long would you expect a CV joint (inner) to last?

I just recently took apart and salvaged for re-use the CV's from (2) '80 
Westi's.  Both vehicles have about 200K on them.  Here's the results:

(7) were the original CV's from late '79 (found date stamp on them)
(4) of those had been flopped from side to side to even out wear, so 
were finally kaput, and no longer useable.

(3) had been repacked somewhere in about 1985 as part of the extended 
warrantee I got when I purchased the bus.  I knew the CV's needed to 
be "fixed" and getting assurances that they would be covered was why 
I got the extended warrantee (less $ than CV's)

I thought they would replace them, but being igorant, I didn't insist 
on that, they repacked, I find out 11 years later.

(1) had been replaced with a Lobro 

I took the (3) best ones and the Lobro and flopped them, greased 'em,
and they make horrible noises in reverse, but hoping to postpone the 
inevitable replacement until money is gathered.

BTW - threads in past have asked about rebuilding CV's.  After 
examining the bits and pieces of a CV here's my take on this.

My job is a Manufacturing Engineer and puts me in a position of 
evaluating part designs and assisting the designers in getting a 
part designed to be manufactured economically and then support the 
shop to see that they ARE manufactured properly.

The inner and outer races for the CV's are basically fairly easy 
parts to manufacture.  With dedicated machines, the factory can pop 
those things out fairly cheap.  There's probably more money spent by 
them in assembly than in fabrication.  Even aftermarket fabricators 
can build these parts relatively inexpensively with standard 
equipment (expensive equipment tho).  Rebuilding requires more labor 
than building new, thus more $.  They rebuild brake masters cause 
there are lots of them, and it's a simple task to bore the master out to 
a specific diameter and install stuff that matches that diameter.

Welding is labor intensive, machining after welding is part specific 
and not well suited to high volume production (low $).

- Jeff (2) '80 Westi's