Anyone know anything about wear on the internal components of a CV axle? I took my RH outer axle joint apart today to inspect it but I must admit that I don't know quite what I'm looking at. I've been noticing some clackety noises when turning left and I'm suspecting my RH axle. I took a bunch of pictures and here's what I noticed:

- The ball bearings look perfect.
- The cage looks blackened on the outer parts of it. Maybe it got hot? Normal??
- Inner race looks pretty good to my eye, some wear.
- The outer race has weird grooves in it.....I'm not sure if they're supposed to be like that or if it's bad wear marks.

Opinions welcome! To those that say "just replace it with a new one" it's not so easy. '66 ones are unique and there's some screwing around required to make the later ones, that are available, fit. I may do that sometime soon but for now, I'm swapping the outer joint only. I want to know if there's anything actually wrong with my old one first.





Inner race and cage

Inner race wear


Cage, blackened appearance



Outer race grooves.



Wear on the cage, round dots where the wear seems to be