Rumor Has it ...
I heard somewhere that Dad finally got new tires for his Ghia and is pleased with the tuneup done on it two weeks ago. But, interestingly enough there's nothing on this blog about that. Curious, very curious...
As for me, I've got a pair of used, complete rear axles on the way from a TheSamba.com member who was selling them for $25. With shipping it was $50 and he couldn't guarantee the condition of the CV joints. But, he did say they were removed from a 1970 Ghia to make way for upgraded driveaxles and not due to any problems.
At the very least I bet I could make one rebuilt CV joint out of the parts and sell it for the same $25. Hopefully, everything's in great condition and I'll be able to clean, regrease and install them on my car. For the time being, though, I'm trying a temporary solution to my dreaded grinding rattle sound.
I did find out that the CV joints on the right side are both worn out with pitting on the races. But, the pitting only occurs on one side of the grooves in the races because the axle only torques in one direction to drive the wheel forward. So, I cleaned them up (sorta), packed new grease in them and installed the axle back on the car but in reverse. In other words, the old wheel-side CV joint is now on the gearbox-side and vice versa.
This way the balls of the CV joint will push on the non-pitted side of the races. Tomorrow I'm going to a VW swap meet in the morning and then some sort of hot rod show in the afternoon. My neighbor invited me to the hotrod show. He's got a '70s Ford Ranchero (Ford's El Camino) and has seen me often in the alleyway fixing my Ghia. There will be plenty of freeway driving between each event and lately that's been the sure-fire way to make the rattle act up. So, if flipping the drive axle doesn't work as a temporary fix I'll find out for sure tomorrow after 5 to 10 minutes at 60mph.
In other loosely-related news I made my last student loan payment today! That frees up $265 a month in our budget. A friend of mine was excited for me because nowI can take all that money for the first couple months and buy either new mountain bike stuff or Ghia stuff with it.
I told him I tried that same logic with Reese last night. I believe right now she's still laughing about it; getting weird looks from the 10-year-old kids at her job.
As for me, I've got a pair of used, complete rear axles on the way from a TheSamba.com member who was selling them for $25. With shipping it was $50 and he couldn't guarantee the condition of the CV joints. But, he did say they were removed from a 1970 Ghia to make way for upgraded driveaxles and not due to any problems.
At the very least I bet I could make one rebuilt CV joint out of the parts and sell it for the same $25. Hopefully, everything's in great condition and I'll be able to clean, regrease and install them on my car. For the time being, though, I'm trying a temporary solution to my dreaded grinding rattle sound.
I did find out that the CV joints on the right side are both worn out with pitting on the races. But, the pitting only occurs on one side of the grooves in the races because the axle only torques in one direction to drive the wheel forward. So, I cleaned them up (sorta), packed new grease in them and installed the axle back on the car but in reverse. In other words, the old wheel-side CV joint is now on the gearbox-side and vice versa.
This way the balls of the CV joint will push on the non-pitted side of the races. Tomorrow I'm going to a VW swap meet in the morning and then some sort of hot rod show in the afternoon. My neighbor invited me to the hotrod show. He's got a '70s Ford Ranchero (Ford's El Camino) and has seen me often in the alleyway fixing my Ghia. There will be plenty of freeway driving between each event and lately that's been the sure-fire way to make the rattle act up. So, if flipping the drive axle doesn't work as a temporary fix I'll find out for sure tomorrow after 5 to 10 minutes at 60mph.
In other loosely-related news I made my last student loan payment today! That frees up $265 a month in our budget. A friend of mine was excited for me because nowI can take all that money for the first couple months and buy either new mountain bike stuff or Ghia stuff with it.
I told him I tried that same logic with Reese last night. I believe right now she's still laughing about it; getting weird looks from the 10-year-old kids at her job.
posted by Chris Druckenmiller at 12:49 PM
2 Comments:
Great blog!
Good call on turning the axle around.
On cars with equal-length axles but different flanges on the wheel side vs. the transaxle/diff side (like maybe your Subaru?), it's possible to reuse worn out axles by putting the right axle on the left side, and vice versa.
This doesn't have to be a temporary fix...there's no reason the bearing surfaces that used to only see action in reverse would not last as long as the surfaces that have seen many hundreds of thousands of miles of action when going forward.
Keep blogging/riding/wrenching!
-Andy
Cool! I'll try out that theory about the joints. I've got the used set from the guy at TheSamba in my basement waiting for a rebuild just in case. But, it'll be interesting to see how many more miles/years I can get out of my originals by just flipping 'em like that.
Thanks for reading, too! I was wondering when folks were going to start commenting. I returned the favor and posted a comment to your velo blog.
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