I still am not aware of the reason for the switch to grease. I intuitivly understood the original use of heavy oil. It still seems better to me.

Or at least if the cv joints are greased adding a little heavy oil as well. My feeling was I hope wrong. That by the substitution of grease the axles repeat sales might increase. They were lasting too long with oil. We all know a manufacturer or sub contractor for them would never think along those lines

I did not "switch" to grease. At some point, someone re-booted these axles. When "they switched to grease", they really packed it in there. The only boot that had an "original type" clamp on my axles was the drivers axle outer end. This can did not have near as much grease in there as the others (as mentioned in my thread: http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=275143). The tube of grease fixed my problem.

Funny thing.... When I replaced the Diff. and swapped in these axles, I actually added some gear oil to all the boots with the clamps that were easy to get off (all but the 1). Then this one is the one that started really making noise. I really packed that grease in there and the noise is gone. That has been over 900 miles ago now since Sunday.

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AJ

1985 300D (SOLD)

Well the noise seems to have gone away after adding the oil into the CV joint, however. I made a 200 mile run yesterday and the noise did not reappear but there is oil everwhere under the rear end on the drivers side of the differential. I crawled under the car and squeezed the inner CV boot and heard air excaping from the boot, awfully dark under there, there seems to be a pin hole in the boot. Damnnnnn, now I have to pull that axel out again and reboot it and then put oil into the can. Last time I pulled the axel in Nov I gave myself a fat lip while pulling the C clip out at the differential. I had a pair of vice grips attached to the hook to pull out the clip, the hook slipped off the C clip and came flying back and hit me in the lip. I still have a small lump in the lip but it is getting smaller over time. Yipee I get to open up the dif again....

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Gary
OBK #37

I just buttoned my diff back up while trying to trace a rear end rumble/clunk. The diff appeared ok as do my axles in terms of play but I have not checked the type or amount of lube as the boote are still intact with factory clamps. If there is no sign of leakage can one assume that the lube is still in the boot? These are chinese units with 10k on them.
I have found the axle ends where they slide into the hubs were not seated and I have now remedied that and am waiting on the aforementioned buttoned up diff cover sealant to cure before testing.

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1981 240D 143k 4 spd manual -SOLD

2004 VW Jetta TDI 5 speed 300k -still driven daily

The next time you have the noise.... stop and backup a little distance....then go forward... my bad axle on my wagon would often go another 400 miles before making any noise. When it first happened it was such a loud noise that I drove home on the side of the road at about 15 mph.... for about 15 miles.... then I accidentally found that backing up ' cured' the noise for a lot of miles..... I did finally replace the axles...

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1980 240d ,

chain elongation, cam marks reference:
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?threadid=10414

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/305365-9-degrees-chain-stretch.html

evap fin cleaning:

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=156207&highlight=evaporator

A/C thread

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/297462-c-recommendations-mb-vehicles.html

2 and 1/2 hours to pull drivers side axel shaft, reboot both CVs as they both had pin holes and leaked all the oil I put in on Wed. Now to see if the Clunk, Clunk, Clunk is gone forever. Now to order 2 more new boots so I can redo the boots on my parts car axels.

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Gary
OBK #37

Seems I am heading down this path....

I have rebuilt units in our SD with about 30k on them from from CVJ Axles.

It seems that when the car is loaded it is more likely to make the noise which last night was so disturbing, I didn't think the car would make it home so we parked it and friends dropped us off.

Checking the swaybar links will be simple, but of the 4 joints, how do you isolate the problem to the joint that has the issue. With a person running outside... they can't determine if it is the right or left.


Thanks,
BR

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1980 300TD-T (82 Turbo and Trans) 159,000 Miles "Jackie-O"
1983 300SD 272,000 Miles "Aristotle"
1987 Jeep Wagoneer Limited - keeps the MB's off the ice and out of the snow
1994 BMW 530it