The CV's went great !

Sorry for the delay in getting back on this but my Comcast Internet Access has been (to be charitable) spotty lately. The CV story went something like this:
After work last Friday I took off the old CV joints and boots and installed the new ones. Time, about two hours. Saturday I realized I had the CV's on the axles backwards and had to turn them around. Time, forty-five minutes. Sunday I enlisted Kiddo's help and put the Axles and CV's back into Friday. The first took somewhere near an hour and the second something like thirty minutes. Being in an awkward position to move the tools under the back of the Vanagon, we developed a system where I would turn a bolt and then kiddo would turn the rear wheel of the VW bringing the next bolt to the wrench. She'd put a wheel chock in place while I tightened and remove it to turn the wheel again bringing the next bolt to turn to my socket. This system worked very nicely and sped the job considerably. I am certain I would have been hours more if I had been doing it alone. So we cleaned up and put away the gear and took Friday for a short drive. The results are in; the job has done away with the CV noise and Friday's much quieter now (and no vibration). Down side, a clicking that sounds like wheel bearings are next. Of course the clicking could be one of the new CV's, so well see if it gets worse or better in the next few hundred miles. My call on the work including the trade off of the new sound: 95% improvement in Friday from the effort. I'll take that and be very happy.

Oh, post game analysis: Three of the four CV joints had wear and galling to the point of pits in the workings with gold tinted highlights. They were the original bearings dating back to April of 1982. They'd run a good race, but it was certainly time to retire them. The best of them (still worn out though) is now a paperweight at work.

-Rob 'hand me the 6mm socket' D.