For something like a half shaft I will only go OEM since I overland and go remote place. But all new OEM/GKN shafts on a 2006 with 230k miles are not worth it. I picked up two fronts from an LR4 with 16k miles and I will reboot and regress for peace of mind but they are excellent. That LR4 did not have HD rears, so my next bet was from one with 71k miles. The inner CV at diff has no play unlike the one in my Rover now. So my question is on the outer joint. I have learned there are two areas of play. One is simply the slop on the shaft itself relative to the ring clip retainer. This is acceptable and normal. The CV joint itself has very slight play also so I am going to run it past someone on here with knowledge on CV joint wear?

The joint from end to end (along the shaft direction) is really minimal at maybe 1/10mm at most. Same for side to side/rotational, super minimal. So there is some play. There is wear on all the surfaces but none can be felt by my finger. Should I slap it all back and boot it up? Or should I look for a better outer CV joint?

By the way, if anyone come across this you can see the ball cage and stuff can all come apart for cleaning. It is like a puzzle game to get things in the right position. Ball bearings come out first, go in last. The cages just have to be rotated into sweet spots to pop put. Critical they go back in the right orientation, "sharp" edges outwards.