Call me hack if you like
 

Ok I am going to experiment on my cv joints.

I cleaned them today for some winter manitenece and discovered some pitting on 3 of them. I need to replace all 4 boots and only one cv is still in great shape. I plan on fixing the pitting by Tig welding the pitted area to smooth those few areas over. I have two reasons for doing this

1 Is that I want to see how long it will last ( I drive about 2000 miles a year)

2nd The joints are over 120 bucks each

3rd I really want to see if it will work. What do you think???

ok, your a hack, cause you gave three reasons despite claiming to have only two.

should be interesting to see how it works out, have fun, take pictures

Jim

Yeah I did. Hey does anybody know the question is the outer portion of the joint soft steel??? I think its just 1020 along with the inner portion and the balls are just hardend.

HACK!:p

Hey just noticed they are only 69 bucks. I may try it to see what happens and just buy the new ones. I really wonder if it would really even be an issue. I am very tempted to roll with it.

Balls and races are hardened. If you had a new set handy you would see there's a slight discolorization as you get away from the races towards that outer edges of each part.

Welding and heating the area will most likely anneal it and return the base material to soft (normal) hardness. At the very least the new stuff you put on will be really soft and will dissappear quickly and now you've injected a bunch of metal into the mix. Bearings like to be lubed by metal free grease :)

Recently having removed, cleaned, greased, and reinstalled my CV's, there's no way I would do it knowing I would do it again sometime soon. Very messy and somewhat ime consuming.

I may use 922t or 309l to fill those areas just to try. I like going against the grain sometimes(used dilivar on top and bottom in 3.0 rebuild) I like to try those not so often thought of fixes . I would like to find another set of axles to rebuild any how.

You are not a hack, but like chrisp said, having done the job once, I would not be excited about having to do it a second time. Oh, what the hell, you are a hack. You should be in Gruppe B!:D

I honor you for thinking outside the box. I try to do the same when possible.

..you rebuilt your motor and used dilavar head studs on purpose?! Not sure if you are thinking outside the box or just not thinking :)

Is 309l the same as Incanel (or however it's spelled)?

The welding will create a localized annealing(soft). Also, the material may have a high carbon content which may produce stress cracks.

I wouldn't attempt.

Let me be the third person to tell you this.

When I did mine I was proud of myself for a clean job, but just before I reinstalled the axles, I checked the movement of the CV joints -- frozen and tight.

I briefly contemplated installing them and driving to get them unstuck (I'm so glad I didn't do that!).

Brought them back to the work bench, disasembled them, then reassembled and lubed while using my fingers to keep the bearings loose and moving -- What a mess.

If they break, you could find this to be a very "unfortunate" experiment. Load up the axle, break the CV cage, axle starts jumping around, axle breaks, broken end whips around, expensive things get destroyed. (Ask me how I know!)

Pelican has complete ready to go axles with CV's installed for a reasonable price. I bought a pair from them and I am very happy.

Chris

All the above, plus how would you grind the welds to round with the precision required?

I won't put in a questionable CV. New axles/cvs are cheap insurance and can fix problems before they happen.

A CV failure could disrupt a weekend at the track, or leave me on the roadside. Both of those cost more than new joints.

All good points Maybe not worth the experiment. Oh and here is the reason behind the dilivar.

As the engine warms up with 12 dilivar down low and the 12 steel up top the thermal expansion rates are different Which I believe to be the cause of the snaping of the studs ( I teach metal science tahts how I know) With all turbo motors they used 24 dilivar studs and they were dealing with much higher pressures.

I think it all boils down to the fact that if an (oil/air) cooled car is not warmed properly you will experience diverse conditions with thermal expansion causing snaping.

I probably just buy rebuilt axles the cheapest soultion. I would like to try the experiment and go with it but as My gut instict says buy new . Gruppe B should be my second name

noah (my son had to sign as well here)

I guess there's been enough warnings about heating the CVs....

Now get back to those exhaust sound samples, you hack you!

Shop slave ?? far out!

Ben,

I think corrosion in 'moist' climates has been indicated to be the primary problem that causes broken Dilivar studs. It seems to be a 'non-problem' in arid areas such as Arizona and West Texas ...

I occasionally replace darkened or severely-scratched CV ball bearings with standard stock parts from the local industrial bearing supply ... if the races are undamaged, i.e., not discolored in localized areas or pitted. Those 'experiments' haven't had any dire consequences, but I don't think I would try fixing pits!

Don't do it. It is a bad idea for so many reasons. Bearing races are precision ground and very, very hard, you will not be able to make them work.