Bongo Fury

You may recall I've just bought a Bongo.

Extremely happy, but for one thing; I think my CV joints need replacing. The seller (who is some distance away), has offered to send me a set of replacements, and pay for them to be fitted. I want to be sure that they are the problem:

1. At the end of my road is a T Junction at which I take a left turn. On my way to work this morning, there was a distinct clicking (I had the window open). 200 Yards later there is a roundabout, from which I take the 3rd exit, distinct clicking heard.

2. As I get nearer to work, 10 miles later, through a tight roundabout (slow speed, lots of lock both ways), hardly any clicking evident.

3. Stressed about it all day, so on way home, pulled into an empty school carpark near home, essentially doing figure of eights. Definite clicking, on both RH and LH turns, but not as distinct as when cold.

Are these the symptoms of worn CV joints, or perhaps something else ?

TIA

Sounds like worn CVs to me fella - the knocking won't happen straight ahead but will happen to varying degrees of lock and acceleration.

hi
how loud is that click?, just annoying or very mechanical, i ask because,
not sure if this is the same thing, but over the last few days i have noticed a strange clicking noise from front off side wheel, but not when moving in a straight line, sounds almost like a stone traped in the tyre hitting the tarmac on each rotation and getting louder as you apply more steering although a bit more metalic sounding, i kept looking and feeling the tyre but no stone found, now it all gets a bit bizzare as after jacking up said front end and having a good look ( nothing doing ) and a little wheel wobbling, lower to ground drive around again, i then put steeing full lock and floored the pedal!!, there was a huge bang and the whole bongo shook, after initial panic, i continued on and all clicking has gone !!!!, wierd
eh !

Clicking, especially on full lock, is almost certainly CV joints - they are less noisy when warm, due to the grease melting and giving better lubrication.

Are they knackered (technical term) once they have started to click? or can a strip down, clean, and regrease, followed by a new c.v. boot do the trick? I know that c.v. joints are pretty expensive for a bongo

If it's a 4WD, then the VC does little work if you are a gentle driver. If you forced it to slip
as you descibed then it may start to slip with an alarming bang similar to winding up locked
diffs except not quite as bad.

bigdaddycain wrote:Are they knackered (technical term) once they have started to click?

In a nutshell - yes . They may not fail for a while, but you're on borrowed time.

Right!... cheers franco, better safe than sorry to try and save a few quid?

Are the c.v. joints shared with another vehicle i wonder? I know the boots from other vehicles can be employed... but they aren't as expensive as the actual joints....

If anyone needs cv kits pm me as I have a contact tel number. I had ours done a couple of months back and they were a v g price.

Thanks shane, will make a note of that in case i need any