Just did a front driveshaft rebuild and when we popped open the double Hookes/Cardan joint we were surprised to discover a component we didn't expect: a CV ball joint.

We didn't know that it was a CV ball joint -- or that it was supposed to be seated in the shaft end of the double joint. The ball+race either was so loosely seating it just popped out during disassembly out or worse was just floating around there in the double joint for who knows how long.

Not having any instructions on it, we tried to just reassemble it without pressing the race in. After several frustrating hours, we finally lost some needle bearings in the ball, which turned out to be a stroke of good fortune as it took us to our local non-franchise auto parts store, where they let us go back in the stock and search thru u-joints until we stumbled upon the Moog 617 CV for Dodge, which is the same CV ball joint as in our front shaft.

This led to an internet search, where we finally found a great explanation about the CV joint from someone who posted a step-by-step rebuild on something called "Scribd" (look it up using search "double cardin joint discovery 2 scribd" as I don't think I can paste links in threads, can I?).

Once we understood the purpose of the CV ball joint, we finally got it together including pressing in U-joint caps in under 20 minutes.

So I am just posting this as:

1. a cautionary tale for anyone doing a front driveshaft rebuild that the RAVE doesn't tell the whole story; and

2. to see whether anyone else has ever had the floating CV joint like we had inside the double joint (very weird as it appears not to have damaged anything inside the double joint, in spite of the new ball joint having to be properly pressed in on a 20 ton HFC press).