Axles (shudder on hard acceleration)

[Wayne Cox]

At 04:40 PM 7/18/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>BTW, don't buy NAPA axles. Get a good one at RAxles (http://www.raxles.com).

My '91 NX shit an inside boot on the passenger side recently.  Very
annoying since both outer boots were relatively new, and I'd heard the
inner ones "never went out".  Ha!  (145K mi, btw)

Due to time constraints,  I bought an AutoZone axle that was available same
day.  Now here's what's always bugged me...  What the heck is that rubber
sleeve on the center of the axle for?  And why do rebuild places always
pitch them in the trash, rather than replacing them?!  If the engineers
haven't done away with them even under pressure from the bean-counters,
they must serve some purpose.  Balance?  Vibration Damping?

Oh yeah;  AutoZone didn't notice I kept the outer joint assy when I
returned the core, hehe.  Nice to keep around to prevent "fried bearing
syndrome" if I need to roll a car sans axles.
    -Wayne