ssoo, did a lot of searching around, hadn't found anything conclusive. either the cage isn't fitting the ***** properly, or, its perfectly healthy as new CVs are suppose to be stiff like a ball joint. this is a used CV i bought. after dealing with aftermarket new and reman axles i've learned they are not worth spending money on at all, but, seems people have perfect luck cleaning/re-greasing/rebooting old CVs(CV in question still has the boots intact, so, its not contaminated(more than likely at least).

this is however before i learned about GKN outer CVs, which would have been cheaper and just as good as something Raxles would do. bought these axles because they were fairly cheap and had both sides(23 spline EF civic)

anyone with any experience with this? this was something i bought used, to replace drivers side CV as it was completely toast..

 

Any ball-and-cage style constant velocity joint (outer joint) will have resistance to rotation that is proportional to the angle the joint works at. Most new parts will be very stiff, and used parts will be a bit easier to rotate. In both cases, the more severe the angle you push the joint into, the most resistance you should encounter. If the joint has little resistance as the maximum angle you can pivot it, I would consider the joint worn out, or improperly built. In these cases the cage tends to break, causing the joint to blow up.

 

awesome thank you, thats more or less the consensus i came to myself. after cleaning and regreasing, its still stiff but movement is much more fluid and smooth now. I looked over the ball and groove area everything was smooth around round, so i'm fairly confident.

side note, i guess thats a pretty good standard for how poorly made all the aftermarket CVs are, new from the store all loose and floppy...

 

Just to add a bit of productivity to the thread, I have dismantled many "new" remanufactered axles from most parts stores, only to find surface defects on the bearing working areas. Most of these parts are not "rebuilt", they are simply "refurbished", meaning they are cleaned (hopefully), regreased, and rebooted. I don't think any manufacturing facility would dedicate time and resources to create new parts for the 1990-2000 era Honda.

 

yeah, no doubts thats true. However, in my case one of the used axles i bought wasn't actually OE it was GSO, and, its all loose. if its so loose, it was more than likely ground out with larger ***** fitted, as, i guess this is the typical thing that is done.

However, from what i understand, most people stopped carrying 'reman' axles because they carry a lifetime warranty and were getting to many take backs. doing that once isn't profitable, doing that multiple times per person with how many people is a very poor business practice.

but, anywho, haven't put a lot of miles on these, but, i'm having zero issues thus far. Either way yeah, i completely agree and as found by plenty other people, finding uncontaminated OE axles and just cleaning/re-greasing is far superior to anything aftermarket. aside from some new GKN outers or having Raxles rebuild them(and probably use the same outer units)