Driveshaft gaiters and MoT

Any experience I have had with the glue together type is that they are s**te. Don't use them. It may last to get an MOT but not much longer and you're back to square one. IIRC Pugs do require the whole driveshaft to be changed as they use a stupid French arrangement to hold the CV joint on. I've never heard of Fleximax or Eezeefit so can't comment. Any info on the web about them?

They are MOT legal, but they are useless. By the time you have got some grease onto the cv joint, and the gaiter round, then chances are you will have got grease onto the bit you are supposed to glue, so it wont work.

Also if the old gaiter is split, there is every likelihood that their will bit some grit, and hence damage in the cv joint, so for the sake of £45, you would be better of changing the shaft.

The message from "Vim Fuego" contains these words:

Stretchyboots are your friends. They work, they're not always as easy as they might at first appear, but in generaly they're not too bad and they're cheap.

OK. I never thought they were going to be any good as an engineering solution (a glued-up split on a gaiter that spends its whole life spinning and flexing, yeah, that sounds like a great idea :-) To be honest I'm looking to flog it and would just rather flog it not with a gaiter that's losing grease and a CV joint that might be running dry. But I don't want to be arsed with doing the work to gain access to the end of the driveshaft and do it 'properly', and the split gaiter is sitting there in a box in the garage just begging to be put on - I just didn't want to put it on if it was an actual MoT-illegal item, is all

Fair point. I'll be careful. :-)

No split, just perishing and grease loss from the end. I've done all the obvious checks for joint wear and can't find any.

They are legal but they are aweful - you'd be lucky to get >6months out of one unless you assemble it in a clean-room environment. The stretch boots work perfectly and cost about =A36 from partco. =A314 for the cone used to slide them over the joint (re-usable) but i used a bit of thick plastic tube sliced to make the cone. Still got two of those onmy car - had them for 24 months now. If the CV is knocking its likely to be beyond repair - ive had little luck cleaning and re-packing them - they go on forever but cause bearing wear etc so i avoid keeping a dead one for long.

I dont know how they assemble them but i was also told you cant strip the CV on a pug 205 so recon is likely your best bet if you dont want to do the stretcher.

Get a stretch boot on there - cheap and wont fail, i promise you.

Clean then whack a load of rubber sealant over them if the cracking isn't too bad.

Wont stop the loss from the end.

Or £0 if you can obtain a traffic cone and cut it down? :-)

Itd have to be one of the fairly hefty cones because the boot takes a lot of stretching. It did its best to crush the one we used and that was made from drain-pipe thickness plastic (1.5mm, stiff walls). Smoothed a very thin layer of the CV grease all over it too to make it slide easily.

In that case, its not a fail.

Friend of mine just got failed on a boot leaking from the shaft end a TINY amount.

depends on the tester, my one wouldn't

That what I did last year. A recon drive shaft was the same price as 2 gaiters and easier to fit.

Think i had bad luck with recon shafts - i had 3 in the space of 2 years from different manufacturers. Eventually opted for an OE and it lasted the remaining 3 years without moaning.

Yes it is, appreciable grease loss is a fail, I checked.

The message from "Vim Fuego" contains these words:

Where did you check it? The MOT manual doesn't mention it in this lot...

1. a. an outer constant velocity joint gaiter missing, split or insecurely mounted to its housing b. a drive shaft constant velocity joint excessively worn or insecure c. a drive shaft coupling excessively worn or insecure d. a drive shaft flexible rubber or fabric coupling unit severely cracked or breaking up e. a drive shaft flexible rubber or fabric coupling softened by oil contamination, insecure or fouling any other part of the vehicle

You're right, sorry, I'm getting confused, it was the cracked or breaking up of the gaiter I was thinking of (which it is - I would say so anyway). That explains why I was once amazed at a car passing MoT when it was losing grease from the end like a bastard.

It shouldn't've passed.

1. a. an outer constant velocity joint gaiter missing, split or insecurely mounted to its housing

That covers leaks from the ends.

John