is it OK to reverse direction of CV joints?

i'm taking the halfshafts out of the E12 to replace all the CV joint boots, and i'm wondering if it's OK to swap the axles from side to side, such that what used to be the "forward" side of the joints is now the "reverse" side. anyone got long-term practical experience with this, and how it affects longevity of the CV joints?

Should be no difference.

i could see "no difference" if it was done routinely since new, but i have no idea how much mileage is on any of them. the cluster shows 122k but i don't know that the cluster is OE to the car, so i'm assuming the CVs have 125k miles being loaded in one direction. just wondering if i'll shorten their life by reversing them. gonna do it anyway, just wondering what i might be in for.

The "cups" will have a wear pattern on them, you might get some vibration if the ball bearings are riding on and off this ridge. Thats probably the worse that can happen. Why do you want to swap them?

In racing, you never want to swap halfshafts side to side. They've been loaded in one direction, and could snap under load.

I've seen it happen.

That said, your E12 has likely not been on racing slicks, been subjected to clutch dump launches, or 1+ G of lateral load. Just guessing, but you might be okay.

Often the trick with the bolt on style CV's is to swap the axles side to side so that the rotational direction is maintained, but the inboard joints are now outside, etc. helps balance out the wear supposedly.

In reply to Maroon92: That is the way we did it in my offroad days, they didn't like to be swapped around

Used to be common to swap the axles side for side on SAABs when the inner joints would get wear indentations in them, causing all sorts of weird vibes. The cups would only wear on one side, you see, so running them on the other side of the car would more or less double the joints' lifespan.

I can see the argument with respect to the sticks themselves, but if you're twisting the sticks to that degree then the whole thing should just be lifed out of service on a regular basis anyway.

I've done it to cheap out on replacing a noisy joint. They click in reverse, then.

I read some axle shaft test in an off-road magazine a few years ago where they took a number of axles and torqued them to failure and reported the max torque. When they took a used axle that had been turning in one direction for say 100,000 miles and torque the hell out of it the other way, it would break at something like 20-30% lower torque (I don't remember the exact figure, but it was significant) than if you were torquing it in the direction that load had been applied over it's life thus far (according to their test). This was for live rear end axle shafts, but I assume it's the same for cv shafts.

Anyway, I doubt it would be an issue for a stock application. I can't speak to the CV joints themselves.

I assume you have checked the lengths.