How to change CV boots

[AVI_8]

This should be a simple job.......should be but mine wasn't.

I had a tear on the gaitor (inner nearside) so bought new boots for both the inner and outer, If you've got the CV joint off it would be silly not to replace both while youre at it.

Got mine from Euro car parts, the kit was quite comprehensive, came with boots, clamps, grease, circlips and covers, some of the cheap kits only come with the rubber boot.

First job to do is to support the car properly, you'll be lying under it, get it as high as you can or it will be more difficult, and use proper stands, don't lie under a car supported by a jack!!

Take the car out of gear and put the handbrake on and remove the inner 6 bolts holding the driveshaft to the gearbox, hyou'll be able to remove 3, then release the handbrake and turn the driveshaft until you can get the remaining 3, I used an allen key with a spanner over the end for extra leverage. From the pic you can see the tear in the gaitor and the bolts you have to remove.

Now remove the bracket to allow the driveshaft to drop free, You may or may not have one on the other side if you're doing the offside I havent looked.

Pic of bracket,its 2 bolts

Once you've done this the driveshaft can fall free and you'll see this,

the metal cover on the end can be chiselled off (carefully if your CV kit didn't come with a new one, mine did), when it's off you'll see this.

Make sure you're wearing overalls as it's a mucky job!, I used lots of rags to clean the area, and remove the old grease, you'll need a pair of circlip pliers to remove the circlip.....Don't forget to do this or the CV joint won't come off!

Once thats done, and if you're lucky, you'll be able to tap off the CV joint from behind with a soft hammer.

Unfortunatelly I wasn't so lucky so bought a puller from Halfords, some are very expensive, a £20 job will do fine. Pic of puller set up, I used a socket at the end of the screw thread (between driveshaft and screw thread), use an old socket which is just less in diameter than the driveshaft.

 

[AVI_8]

Now normally your puller combined with gentle taps with a soft hammer will pull off the CV joint no problem.........normally!

Mine was a complete b@stard, I progressivly tightened the clamp, tried to tap it off, didn't want to use too much pressure on the clamp, so used some heat on the inner race, .....make sure you've got some water incase the grease catches fire!! It probably won't though, mine didn't despite heating it up to a very high temperature. It still didn't come off, so I tightened the clamp further

After a while I was sure that the clamp pressure would have damaged the CV joint, by this point I had tightened it up using considerable force so I thought if I'm going to have to replace the CV joint now anyway I've nothing to loose by hammering the thing with a large hammer, still it wouldn't come off, so I tightened the clamp further until this happened.

The CV joint disintegrated, now that takes a lot of force!

So after pulling it off I'm left with just the inner race attached to the driveshaft.

I heated it up until it was almost glowing and even with a big hammer using a lot of force it's stuck fast, which is where I am now.

So I bought one of these to "persuade" it off tomorrow

An angle grinder, it's a last resort, and as long as I'm careful not to damage the drive shaft I'm hoping to cut it off tomorrow, I've never come across this before, it's highly unusual, it's almost as though the inner race is welded to the driveshaft, probably been there for 19 years.

Will keep you updated

 

[RSGulp]

 

[bernard tester]

Hi it looks as though you still have the drive shart on the car! I normaly pop them off and do them on the bench it makes life a lot less stresfull and much easey to do the other end. regards Berny.

 

[iangray100]

One of my CV's , when i did them both way back was very tight but , I suspect looking at the pictures yours got stuck going over the circlip groove because it had been done dry on the splines and built up a bur.

The Cv costs are quite low and sometimes its worth just replacing them in any case due to wear & tear .

 

[AVI_8]

Got this off today, cut a chunk out of it with the angle grinder, even then I had to use quite a lot of force with a big hammer, it was tight down to the last few milimetres, the driveshaft splines look fine so hopefully the new cv will go on ok, It'll hopefully come with my oil cooler tomorrow, Ordered the parts from Design 911, they offer 5% discount to club members.

Replaced the outer boot, it's fairly self explanatory, just remove the clips, clean the shaft, give it a spray with WD40 or similar to make it easier to slide the old boot off and new one on, this boot wasn't damaged and the CV was well packed with grease, so I just left it as was. Will post pics of putting the new CV on when it arrives

 

[Dekker]

Hi Logan,
well done and thanks for sharing your experience and the great photos.
I've not had to do mine yet but I know it is only a matter of time.

Regards, David.