CV Boot Replacement (front Axles)

[jtlaxca]

Dear BMW Technical X5 Forum:

Has anyone have a procedure to change the front CV Boots? I have 68K on my 2001 BMW X5. I just noticed some grease on my wheel. I check under CV boots and they are torned. I will really appreciate it if someone could help me with this issue

Thanks

[klik71]

Hello fellow X5 owners, (new to forum) I too would love any info on replacing the Cv boots. Its very expensive to pay someone to do this ($450.00) the $ saved by doing it myself could be better spent.

[BMWCowboy]

U CAN replace just the boot~~>But if ur keeping the X5 its better to replace the whole axle cuz the dirt & grim that got in you usually cant get out~~>either wayy its not that hard to remove but it takes 2 ppl to reinstall

[fixnprsh]

you can do the boot yourself, but it takes some special tools, one to get the axle out of the hub (or an air hammer with the ice pick on the end) and a speciall puller to get it back in the hub. You might get it out, but it could take a whole lot of time and cussing to get it back in with out the special tools, I have done it both ways, and its easier with the puller.

As far as replacing the axle shaft, I've done tons of boots and haven't had to replace an axle yet.

[grafhky52]

TO DO THIS JOB YOU NEED A LIFT YOU HAVE TO REMOVE A CONTROL ARM, PULL AXLE OUT OF THE HUB THEM REMOVE AXLE FROM THE CASE THEN YOU HAVE TO GET IT BACK IN BOTH. SUGGESTION TAKE IT TO THE DEALERSHIP

[edsliwak]

I highly recommend changing the CV boot/axle on your own. It is not that difficult of a job. About 2-3 hours of work.

Remove these parts in the following order: tire, brake caliper (tie it to the strut so it is out of the way), remove the rotor, and then remove the bolt from the rear control arm on the chassis side (this arm runs from the chassis to the swivel bearing, and it requires a 16mm socket on one side of the bolt, and an 18mm socket on the other side. Do not remove it from the ball joint. All you need to do is remove that single bolt from that arm.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO REMOVE ANY OTHER ARMS. Other posts may tell you that you need to, but you really don't. I've done this twice already.

Now use a 3 jaw gear puller (rent it from autozone, checker, or kragen) to pull the swivel bearing apart from the axle. The dust cap WILL separate from the swivel bearing, unless you get the special BMW tool which will utilize the lug holes for grasping instead of claws around the dust cap. It is not a big deal, it will take you about 5 minutes to remove the dust cap and toss it (unless you can weld it).

Do not hammer the spindle at the end of the axle as it will damage the threads. Use the gear puller!

Once it is pressed through enough, you will be able to pull on the swivel bearing towards you and will be able to remove the axle.

Now you will have to hammer the outer joint off from the main portion of the axle so that you can get your cv boots on. Ensure that it is aligned straight with the rest of the axle so it will come straight off. I used two 2x4's to help with this.

Once you have the new boots on, make sure you get the outer joint back on ALL the way. Now you can go back to putting the car back together. You will have to use your 36mm axle nut socket and sacrifice a 3-5" extension in order to hammer the swivel bearing back onto the spindle. This is a two person part of the job, and about 15.7 to 16mm of the spindle should be protruding once you are through so that you can get the axle on far enough. It'll take you about 5-10 minutes to do this with lots of hammering.

Tip: Have the person hammering apply pressure with one hand onto the swivel bearing towards the vehicle so there is less flexing with each pound. Have the assistant hold the extended 36mm socket with channel locks so they don't get hit.

Put the rotor, brake caliper, and axle nut on now. You can place something into the rotor vent so that it will not continue to spin when you apply pressure with the axle nut when putting it on. Once it gets down to fully torqing it down, you should put the tire back on without the center cap and continue.

The rear control arm needs to be torqued to 84 ft/lbs, and the axle nut needs to be set to 300 ft/lbs. Use a breaker bar and the pipe from your jack as a lever and apply all of your weight for the axle nut. It should suffice, if you weigh enough.

You are now good to go.

[bbucher01]

I am going to repair my outer CV Boot on my 330 XI and I was wondering if you guys have any tips or advice or instructions that will help me and any extra parts that will need replaced? And plus, when I take off the Axle lock nut I know I have to replace it when I put it back on..is there a special way or tool to put it on?

[DIYDave]

Hi, I posted this on a couple of other sites, and so thought that I would do the same here. I needed to replace the CVJ boots on my wife's 325XI, but was apprehensive about the amount of disassembly and special tools that were needed. I decided to make my own tool to do the job, here's what I made in all it's glory:

It's made out of aluminum, because I could band saw it, and because you can run aluminum past a router if you mount a 1/4" end mill in it. I used some stuff called Nikx Stikx to lube the mill, but it still dulls after a while because of the speed of the router. You can see some of the milling marks where I spun the tool.

Here's the tool mounted to a piece of aluminum tubing that represents the axle.

This is way overbuilt, but I had read so much about how tough the joint comes apart (a BMW tech told me that it was almost a press fit) that I made sure the tool would do the job. If I made it again, I would just have slotted the pusher rather than use a band clamp to hold two pieces together. The pressure needed is nowhere near this level of construction. The carriage bolts are 1/2". Seriously, 5/16" or 3/8" would be sufficient, and only two are really needed. Note that I made an extension on the pusher part, so that the tool pushed on the CVJ itself, and not the housing. It's hard to get the axle to line up square with the CVJ housing, but with the extension it doesn't matter.

I bought two other tools to make the repair simpler. A boot clamp squeezer:


And a ball joint separator:


I didn't like this particular ball joint separator. It was too bulky to fit well between the CVJ housing and the top of the ball joint nut. Hard to see, but here's a closeup without the tool.


Not much space there. Look at how precariously it is caught on the edge of the nut in the picture below. I have the nut on far enough so that the bolt is just level with the top of the nut. Not sure what's a better make. I got it to work, but there have to be better units out there.

Here's the repair:


Wheel off, I pop the swing-arm. This is the only nut that I removed from the car during the entire repair. Note that I left the nut on the top so that when it popped, it didn't fly around. Once you've popped the swing arm, you can move the outboard axle assembly around pretty easily so be careful not to pull on the brake line or the wire to the wheel speed sensor. There's also a leveler under here that senses level for the headlights. Use care.

I'll show the rest of the repair in the next post.

[DIYDave]

Tool in use:


I alternated between two of the bolts, using a wrench on the flats of the carriage bolt and the nut to push the joint apart. Once the Cir-Clip popped, I could just use one of the carriage bolts to push the joint apart the rest of the way. Again, once the cir-clip popped, I was pleasantly surprised that this joint was not hard to pull apart. I probably could have used a pry-bar to speed up the process, but I wanted to take it slow and controlled, so I just used the carriage bolts to slowly pull the axle from the joint

I'll spare you pictures of the gritty details of cleaning the joint, but I disassembled it, cleaned everything thoroughly and reassembled it. Here's the joint ready for re-greasing and reassembly. I squeezed the entire tube into the center of the joint, and worked it back and forth until grease squeezed out between all the bearings. That's the new cir-clip on the drive shaft.


A little explanation is in order for the reassembly jig here. I originally made this turnbuckle tool, thinking that I could do both the dis-assembly and reassembly with this simple jig. It turned out that I could not get near enough pushing pressure to pop the cir-clip with the turnbuckle, it just folded in half. But a turnbuckle is really made to pull. Here I used it to draw the joint together. It's loosely bolted through the ball joint connection.


Note that my plan was to just put a threaded bolt hole into the aluminum axle clamp that I made, bolt the turnbuckle to it and pull with that. But I had this little jig handy and just lying there all sad from it's previous failure, so I gave it a job. You can easily draw the axle into the CVJ by turning the turnbuckle by hand for about 3/4 of the way. To start, pull the axle in up to the cir-clip, then put a very slight amount of pull on it as you push the cir-clip in with a flat screwdriver. If you can't turn the turnbuckle by hand, your cir-clip is not seated and you are binding on it. Make sure the open side of the cir-clip is pointing toward the floor. Easier to get to that way.

Draw it in. Sooner or later you will need more purchase than just your hand. I used a small wrench slid through the slot of the turnbuckle. When you are getting close, be quiet and you can hear the cir-clip snap home. It's faint. Turning more on the turnbuckle brings up resistance, letting you know that you are there.

Put the swing arm back in place. I used a jack stand, and let the car down slowly onto the swing-arm. This puts pressure on the ball joint to keep it from turning as you tighten it. Don't let the full weight of the car down on your swingarm, you might bend it.


About this time, I was 3 hours into the project, both wheels were on the car and I was done. I don't really know the rest of you reading this, but I strongly recommend popping a beer at this point, leaning back against the back door step, and basking in the limelight for a moment. Your wife will be along soon to remind you to clean the garage floor and that she's conveniently written a reminder of the next project looming up for you on her little whiteboard in the kitchen.

The new tool sits in my cabinet, if anyone wants to borrow it. I also did drawings so I could have this thing laser cut cheaply if someone wants their own. If so, there are a number of improvements that I'd make. The split collar would be one-piece with a slot to drop over the axle. The split axle clamp would have swing bolts with nuts to put it together (it was a headache lining it up under the car) and it would have a square shape rather than a fitted circular shape for where it contacts the axle, so different axle diameters could be accommodated. I spoke with a garage mechanic, and he said that built this way, this tool would work with 85-90% of the cars made.

If you would like one of these for your very own, contact me and I'll check out how much it would cost. (no one's asked yet, so I haven't checked.)

Gotta go. The under-cabinet lights in the kitchen need fixing, but that's for another post.

DIY Dave

[armandjones82]

That was a nice images on how to replace the CV Axle Assembly or Boot in order to really get the car running smoothly. This was the thread that I needed to read in order to really read upon the DIY for cars when things do happen. Thanks for this one!

[dville]

I need to rent or borrow your axle remover Dave. I sent you a PM.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/x5-e53-forum/73878-cv-boot-replaced-30-minutes-4.html#post791048

[theclaw]

Sub'd and bumped. I was just quoted $300 per side to do this. Looking for DIY solutions.

Thanks, great write up.

[ruf-porsche]

Originally Posted by grafhky52

TO DO THIS JOB YOU NEED A LIFT YOU HAVE TO REMOVE A CONTROL ARM, PULL AXLE OUT OF THE HUB THEM REMOVE AXLE FROM THE CASE THEN YOU HAVE TO GET IT BACK IN BOTH. SUGGESTION TAKE IT TO THE DEALERSHIP

A good BMW Indy will be a lot cheaper then a stealer. My Indy worked at one of the largest BMW dealership in the area before opening his own shop. I bring my X there when I don't want to work on it like replacing the cv boots.

[Mrmerlin]

Nice tools Dave,
and thanks for taking the time to document the repair