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Thu May 08, 2025 9:00 pm

Hello all, I recently got my buggy finally driving and it had some clicking coming from one of the cv joints. I tore the axles apart and found some cages with wear and some light grooves in the outer race and inner star. I used a cylindrical sand paper flapper wheel to smooth the bumps in an attempt to reduce the clicking and squeeze every ounce of life out of the joints. After reinstalling, 2 of the 4 joints click now instead of 1 seemingly. I have the joints assembled correctly and phased (at least within 1 spline of being phased) so I'm assuming that I have worn the joints too much with my sanding and caused the cages to contact the outer race now. Has anyone done this before?

Sat May 10, 2025 7:28 pm

I'll take my best guess but I'm no expert on CV's. Yeah, you took to much metal off with the flapper sander. You can use actual store bought polishing equipment or make your own.

I make my own with an air powered spinner and a split bit. I take fine wet/dry sand paper and thread it thru the split and then wrap it around. Being air powered, I can use water or oil or solvent as lubricant.

Remember the Holy Command Of Fabricators. It's easier and cheaper to remove to little several times than to remove to much one time.

Mon May 12, 2025 6:21 am

you won't find too many people that will say much on CV prepping here, ive asked before. you'll just have to research it on your own which you should've done before you messed with your cv's. prepping them is basically just intentionally wearing them in specific areas so they have more clearance, so it sounds like you just added 20k miles to cv's that were about wore out already.

Mon May 12, 2025 7:13 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LY62pc8UA

Mon May 12, 2025 11:22 am

I have torn my down numerous times and never felt the need to do anything drastic with them. If I see a sharp corner I might feel like touching it with a scotchbrite wheel on a die grinder.
I've found in my own foolishness in the past that doing some of these things that get hype like 'prepping' CV's usually ends in regret. Setting up CV's does take some knowledge like clocking and the difference in parts that at a glance look the same but don't go together the same. I'm just saying, people racing CV's might find some usefullnes in wearing in CV's because they do it all the time and know what to touch. So it's something normies think they got to do to be 'like the racers'.

Mon May 12, 2025 11:28 am

I think if I had some advice to give I'd tell someone putting new CVs in to make sure they install them correctly and grease them good. Then run them for about 100 miles or a couple weekends and then blow them apart and clean them so they can be closely inspected for signs of friction. After that they should be fine and depending on how much they get used I'd suggest annual rebuilds just to make sure the boots and grease stays in good condition and so you can spot bad things coming before they're a problem.

Being an industrial maintenace dude, that is the whole object of my proffession - knowing service intervals and wear tolerances. That's what keeps things rolling.

Mon May 12, 2025 11:31 am

I would also suggest keeping an eye on cv angles and if limit straps are used keep in mind they stretch over time and need to be adjusted. I usually run my axles a couple degrees less than what I can max get away with to account for stretch.