CV Joint Boot Replacement

"Chris F." wrote in news:4aff4391$0$5347$ snipped-for-privacy@news.aliant.net:

Highly unlikely. Cracking is primarily a result of a combination of rotation, shaft angles and cold. Boots split during the car's regular use, not while sitting idle.

And it takes about four years for the first sign of cracking to develop into total splits, so somebody's been ignoring this for a /long/ time.

Not now, but if you start using the car with any regularity, they may split very soon. How old are they? Original from 1980, and 29-years-old?

If you're going to drift off the tripod and pull the whole shaft apart so as to replace the outer boots, you'd be really, really "not-very- smart" to refuse spending the few extra bucks to have new inner boots as well.

The inner boots have to come off in order to replace the outer boots, and once they're off there's very little point in putting 29-year-old inner boots back on again. You really wanna tear back into this job in six-months time?

If you're not clamping the shaft in a vise, that's your primary problem. Do that first. Then...

Two small screwdrivers: Use one to keep the lower end of the snap ring still, then use the other one to bend the other end up to loosen the ring. After you've loosened it sufficiently, you can grab the ring in the middle with the screwdriver and just pull it off the shaft. Since you're not re-using the snap ring, don't worry about distorting it.

I think you'll find putting the NEW ring on a LOT harder than getting the old one off. You're best to visit an auto parts place and get a set of the proper snap-ring pliers for such an application. Since you're in Canada, try Princess Auto, Canada's "cheap tools" answer to America's Harbor Freight. You /can/ do it without the proper tool (I've done it), but that takes the sort of mechanical aptitude that obviates the need to ask questions about how to do it.

My advise is replace the entire axles. If the boots are ripped then most likely dirt has gotten inside.

Well since you have to pull the entire axle out to work on them the easier and better solution would be to just replace both axle shafts. You get new boots, grease and spend a 1/4 of the time working on them.

Those inner boots may look OK but if the outers have failed it is VERY likely the inners will fail soon as well. Not really worth the time/effort to replace JUST the boots when a complete axle assembly is not a lot of extra money.

Agree. I have repacked/rebooted CV joints before when I had one bad CV on a VW, but that was the only time I've done it. It was a lot of work (not hard but time consuming,) and when I was confronted with the same situation on a 944, I found that I couldn't even buy two new joints for the price of a reman axle.

nate

I'd agree. The thing is, you can pack them with grease that is much higher quality than the grease that the prepacked reman axle uses.

And I agree also that you should do inners and outers at the same time, because if one has failed, the other will fail soon also.

If it were my car, and I was absolutely positively sure that the car has not been driven with the damaged boots much or at all, I would take them all out, tear the boots off, clean everything with solvent and get all the old grease out, repack with Mobil 1 racing grease, put new boots on and put it all back together. It'll be good for years after that, or until the boots get damaged again.

If the car has been driven at all with dirt in the joints, I'd replace them.

--scott

Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure the boot tore while I was removing the steering knuckle. I'm going to see if a mechanic buddy of mine can help me out with this. If all else fails I can get a couple of remanufactured driveshafts for about $200.

That's really the way to go, honestly, unless you have a LOT more free time than money.

nate

"Chris F." wrote in news:4b00285c$0$5333$ snipped-for-privacy@news.aliant.net:

Then it was ready to go anyway. When new, those boots are made of REALLY tough rubber and do NOT rip on their own.

In your case, that might be the best thing to do.