Question for the mechanics

[ryanstev]

I took my BF in to a garage on Wednesday to have my tail shaft yoke rotated 180 degrees.
I told them I'd changed my center hanger bearing and marked the yoke on the shaft, but not the yoke relative to the other and I had a vibration that I didn't have before and I thought it was 180 degrees out.
I also told them that I wasn't really that pleased with the universal joint change I did, so they said they'd replace it.

They said they didn't think the yoke as causing the vibration, they thought the car had a shimmy in the rear and recommended I replaced the whole tail shaft instead.
I said it didn't have a vibration before, so they changed the universal joint, but didn't rotate the yoke (to cover themselves) they also told me that they repacked the rear CV which bolts to the diff.

Driving home after work the vibration was still there, so I called them yesterday morning, they recommended again that I just change the tail shaft, I said I couldn't afford that and just wanted to rotate the yoke.
They told me, *important* they'd have to fit a new universal joint, as they fit them with a hammer, not a press.

I rang around and found a garage that presses them in, they said they'd press the old u joint out and reuse it, but it's on me. Which is fair.

I dropped it around to them and about 2 hours later they called me and told me the CV joint has a hole in the side, caused by incorrect assembly by whoever worked on it last. They said I almost lost the balls in the joint, which gave me a fright. They said they haven't performed any work on it, they put it on the hoist, saw the joint, then parked the car and called me.

I walked to the first garage, they told me, with a smile, that he'd told me about this and tried to talk me out of the work I wanted him to do, but I insisted. (Partly true, he mentioned it probably wasn't worth replacing the universal joint but didn't mention the hole though.) He said it was just a small hole by a bolt and the other garage was trying to scare me.

I decided to believe him, because I wasn't careful enough with the CV boot and thought I'd pierced the rubber and that's where the hole was, because the car didn't feel like it had a gaping whole in the side of the CV joint.
I agreed to get a new tail shaft with them (it hasn't arrived yet) and picked up the car from the other garage and drove home at the end of the day.

Well, tonight I decided to have a look at the CV joint, I've attached a picture and have a couple questions once you've had a look.



Question 1: Is there any possible way, what so ever, that you'd even so much as clean the windshield, much less work on a CV joint, of a car that came in with a CV joint looking like that?

Question 2: The bulges from the cover, cover the bolts, you can't remove the bolts, because the metal cover is in the way, correct? I suppose you *could* use an open ended spanner to turn the bolts 1/16th turns at a time, but they aren't rounded at all. I don't know why I'm asking the second question, I already know the answer to question 1.

Since they told me they used a hammer, not a press to fit the joint, it means they had to remove the CV joint to do that, you can't use a hammer when the joint's still on the car, that answers question 2, they had to have removed it, so the CV didn't look like that when they began.