Carrera CV Boot Replacement

[alniki]

Originally Posted by Grady Clay

You can disassemble the outboard CV joint by tipping the
axle half-shaft to the side and removing the balls and cage.
Grady

Has anybody successfully disassembled the outboard CV joints of '87 Carrera with G50 by the way suggested by Grady?

I'm rebuilding my CV joints soon and have to decide to go the DIY way or not, thanks!

[initial]

I had a split outer boot on my 89 this spring. I looked at the situation and decided that the easiest and quickest way was to simply order and replace wint a new half shaft... It's a couple hundred bucks but you get new CV's. after about 1-1.5 hours of work.

[hcoles]

on my 89 I cleaned and regreased the out board cv's.
removed boot and apply/shoot in all sorts of cleaners/degreasers/solvents multiple times.... then pack in new grease.
After doing all this I would have been better to just buy new shafts, it was a lot of work and a big mess.
I tried getting the swaged on outer boot tin off.... nothing doing unless you have some sort of special tool to get that tin off and not mess it up so it can be reinstalled and not leak... I'm thinking a DIY has less than 1% chance of doing this successfully.

[alniki]

Thanks!

Looks like the outer CV joints cannot be disassembled or easily serviced. Talked to my Porsche garage and they quoted repacking with new grease and new OEM boots for about USD 50.00 per axle, that's 100 bucks per car. Since I already have four Lobro CV boot kits they would just use my kits and reduce the price accordingly. Seems an easier rout to go.

BTW, the wrench said he never saw a worn outer CV joint in his 20+ year professional life so just repacking with new boot is good enough while the inner CV joint did occasionally see some wear.

I guess that's because the inner CV joint takes the torque directly from the trans/differential while the outer CV joint gets some buffer from the axle shaft, hence less prone to wear.

[hcoles]

could it be that the "wrench" hasn't seen many insides of the non disassemblable outers, therefore not seen that they wear?

[alniki]

Yes, probably, but I guess in that case he just checked for CV joint wear by its function and noise etc instead. Anyway, I'm going to take his words for now as after all the conversation in the past few weeks I think he is a pretty smart and honest guy.

And sometimes you have to take a chance and think you may get lucky esp when you have nothing better to do except for spending the money you've not planned to spare.

[hcoles]

you can always just clean and regrease to the best extent you can... you can look in there maybe with a bright light and see if pitting is visible... the only issue is you toast a rear bearing when you have to redo or replace with a new axle.

[88-diamondblue]

Here is a picture of the results of trying to remove the outer tin.



The axle can be removed with out affecting the rear wheel bearing. It is completely independent of the axle. No need to replace rear wheel bearing unless it is bad. And yes it is one of the messiest jobs that you can do

[hcoles]

I think you're right my memory is shot.. the inner race sticks to the hub and not the axle... my error... I had to replace a bearing because I forgot to put the brake tin on... which meant the hub had to come out... whick I think pulls one of the inner races with it...

[Jtilden]

Originally Posted by Grady Clay

Michael,

Great pictures and descriptions. Thank you. I archived your
thread with the other good VO joint threads.

You can disassemble the outboard CV joint by tipping the
axle half-shaft to the side and removing the balls and cage.

What did you use for sealant between the end cap and the
inboard CV joint? Porsche calls for some white sealant
included in the kit. I am concerned about having much
elastic material in the “sandwich” that the CV joint bolts
have to clamp and compress tight.

Good job. Remember to re-torque the bolts soon
(100-200 mi) and then regularly.

For others doing this, note how the joint is assembled.
You can get it assembled wide-to-wide and narrow-to-
narrow but the joint locks up and is non-functional.




Best,
Grady

Here it is Sunday morning and I decide to get up and replace the CV Boot that is torn on my SC...things are going great until I get to the part where it is time to remove the CV Joint from the axle shaft and then BAM!...I have silver balls all over the floor. After cleaning every thing up its time to put it all back together so I look in the 101 projects...no diagram. So on to the Bentley's., still no luck...so I figure what the hell and type CV Joint Rebuild into the search function and up pops the above thread....I quickly recall my Rubix Cube skills and reassemble my joint to match the picture above...BINGO!....this site is awesome

[Davewjunior]

That's funny. I just pulled up that exact same thread last week when my CV joint "exploded" into the parts washer.

[mikeycfl]

Awesome thread. I did mine a couple of weeks ago and this was priceless. One issue I found in breaking the hub nut with a bar wedged between the wheel studs was I bent my wheel studs (replacement thread here Wheel Stud replacement...A pictoral.. ). I left the wheel on for the other side - lowered the car, set the handbrake and chocked the wheels. This was much easier for me.

I also took note during disassembly, and the champhered side of the CV cage on mine was on the axle side. I can only assume that this is for clearance when the axel is at an extreme angle.

To torque the hub nut I bought a 300# torque wrench at Harbor Freight, then gave it another 10% grunt effort.

I rechecked my torques last week and all is well. Cheers.

[Determined]

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[Determined]

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[McLaren-TAG]

For the never ending amount of information available here. I just finished replacing my CV boots, followed the threads, got the torque specs from the Bentley Manual, and I'm almost done. The inspection was fine, but wanted to share one more bit of DOH wisdom.

Make sure that when you tighten the metal retaining strap that comes with the kit you don't do this... the nub should not go right in the path of where one of the M10 bolts needs to go.

[Smoove1010]

Subscribed! I thought that r/r the rear oil lines was a newbie right of passage - and successfully completed that job yesterday. While doing that, I noticed a small outer CV boot split - this looks like another newbie DIY right of passage... I wouldn't have the confidence or the knowledge to do either of these little projects without the incredible knowledge base on this forum.

[88911coupe]

I have used this thread as a great resource but have a question. I recently noticed some CV grease coming out of the inboard driver's side CV. I assumed it was the band on the larger end of the CV boot but now I'm not so sure...I think it might be coming from the metal "cap" on the end that gets pressed on after adding the grease. Grady mentions earlier that it might not be a good idea to have anything between the cap and the two metal pieces but could a little sealant on the outer edge do any harm? I snugged up the larger band so I'll be able to check to see if that fixed the problem.

[Smoove1010]

Are you sure it's CV grease and not transmission grease coming out from behind the flange? If it's CV grease, and the flange bolts are all tight, I'd be concerned that the cap isn't seated properly on the CV joint itself. That cap is fairly soft metal and ought to provide enough of a mechanical seal to keep the grease in. It might be worth a disassembly, inspection, give the mating surfaces a good cleaning, and try it one more time. I'd follow Grady's instructions to the letter on this one.

[88911coupe]

Thanks, definitely not tranny fluid, it's CV grease for sure. I have checked now that I snugged up the bands so I'm starting to think it's the bands that were loose and it's not leaking from the "cap". I'll keep checking. I also have been trying to figure out how to inject a little more CV grease into the boot...maybe some sort of pressure grease gun or a large syringe of some sort. It would be easy to get in inserted throgh the smaller opening.

[Buzzard95]

Great write up & pics, plus other contributors. Wish I'd found it before biting the bullet and buying 2 new GKN Loebro #911-332-024-15 Axle shafts for my 190K '88 911. Maybe I'll rebuild my original ones for spares. One question, though... the new axle nuts are way smaller than the original nuts (see pic) Is there a problem with tightening these self locking nuts to the 339 ft lbs as specified by the Bentley manual?