Hello Tom,

As far as I can make out from your description my reply is that your
mechanic got it right.The spring washer / circlip  certainly snaps into
the groove provided on the shaft.

Re the groove you mention the bently bible ch 42.2 you will note that
the groove is on the outside and again on ch 42.7.

tom wrote
> Anyway, the guy who put on the CV joints used the spring washer that comes
> with the boot kit, though none of my 3 manuals shows the spring washer
> being used in the Vanagon and the instructions that came with the kit
> make it clear that some applications use the washer and others don't.
>
> So, question 1): is this a big deal??  Should I insist the washer be
> removed?
>
> The guy who put on the joints also put them on "backwards" from the way
> my old (original with car) CV joints were installed and "backwards" from
> the way they are shown in the various manuals' illustrations.  That is,
> there's a groove on the circumference of the CV joint near one of the
> flat faces; it looks like the cap attached to the rubber boot might
> "snap" into this groove.  But, this groove was installed AWAY from the
> boots in my original joints, and the illustrations indicate likewise.
> None of the manuals indicate any sort of orientation in the text, only
> the pictures.
>