Ever checked your CV bolts? Check your CV bolts.

I started to post this after I rebuilt mine, but decided my experience might have been rare. But then I read this post in the Mondial forum, and decided it was worth mentioning.

At issue: I've owned the car about 6 months. After noticing that one of my CV boots was throwing grease, I decided to replace all 4 of them following the excellent tutorial by Birdman. He mentions that the 24 Allen Bolts that fasten the joints to the gearbox & hubs can be very tight and hard to remove (and they can be). But what I didn't expect was for at least 2 of those bolts to be barely tight at all. At least one of mine was practically loose, and another's captive nut was completely stripped and holding just by luck. The recent Mondial owner found a similar situation - bolts that have already lost their tightness.

If I hadn't noticed the leaking boot, I don't know that I would have ever put a wrench on the bolts just for the sake of finding out if they were tight as they should be. So I'll toss this advice out to other owners, especially new owners - pull the rear wheels, grab a wrench and make sure all 24 bolts are torqued to spec (57 lbs).

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(Pic via birdman308's CV Rebuild Tutorial)

This is just one of those things that you might not think about randomly checking, and expecting that the previous mechanic did everything right. Take an hour, and make sure their work has held up over time.