Tony

You need a hand? I'm in theBoro and I just replaced my rear bearings about a month ago. I'll send you a PM with my contact info and we can meet up.

I've got the breaker bar, socket that you need and the extra pipe too.

Captain Obvious reporting in here. If you not already doing it, I believe it's safer to do this task with the wheel in place and the car on the ground. Remove the little hub cap thingy and go in that way. 3/4" drive w/about a 3' cheater bar. Just stand on it...carefully. Makes a creaky noise like Count Dracula's casket when it finally gives up & lets go.

For the back on part, I bought the BA Harbor Freight T-Wrench for about $60. Clean up the threads, a little Locktite Red, a new cotter pin, & good for another 25 years/180,000 miles.

+1 for sure if you're using a breaker bar (doesn't matter w/ an impact wrench). For "breaker bars", I purchased a 10' length of pipe from Home Depot and cut it into 4 pieces (4, 3, 2, 1'). They slip right over any of my sockets, wrenches, (or small breaker bar) and work great. FWIW, my Ingersol-Rand (accept no substitute :)) has PLENTY of torque, in fact, on a frozen motor mount bolt, it actually broke my engine crossmember support the first time I needed to remove them. Then John Walker pointed out that sometimes it's "better" to use a bar instead so I used a 3' pipe, and the bolt came loose. Doing the math, the IR has more torque, but it wasn't as effective as the bar in that particular instance.

You don't need to remove the axle nut to remove the half axle. I've done it many times by unbolting the CVs at the tranny end and inboard at the bearing flange.

Forgot to mention you'll need a long 8mm 3/8 drive allen socket.

yes, important to let us know what type you have.. later cars have the wheel side where the cv is integrated with the axle...regreaseable but not replaceable. Regreaseable is not easy either... if you like getting messy for a few hours, can be done.

What hcoles said...he's got a G50 so the axle nut must come off.

For my beetle, I had a 1/2" or 3/4" thick hardened steel plate with a 36mm hex cut out of it. The plate had maybe a 6" extension on 1 side, 2 or 3" wide, with a place to insert a 1/2" breaker bar. Bought it from some advertiser in HotVW's or something. If I ever find it again, I'll post a picture. It was a godsend.

In use, you put all your weight on the breaker bar and then whale on the 6" protrusion with a BFH. Worked like a charm, but on the bug the axle nut was quite a bit further outboard - wouldn't work on a 911.

Go for the electric powered impact wrench. I also makes lug nut removal a breeze.

Thx for the input. I'm going to re-read the posts on CV boot replacement and give it a go on Saturday with a 3/4 breaker bar. Will post the results.

If you are just doing a CV boot replacement you don't have to remove the axle nut. Removing the axle nut is necessary when doing something like replacing the wheel bearing.

Maybe the 87 is different but to remove the axle boot all you should need is jack the car up, get under from the motor side looking at the wheel and using an 8mm allen wrench remove the allen bolts....it helps to be a contorsionist.

I sent another PM but I have the Bentley manual for your car if you want to take a look at it.

2 days' of squirting Loctite Freeze-lube, a 1/2" 30MM socket and the jack handle did it for me no worries.

An 87 is different. To replace an outer CV boot on a G50 (with an OEM boot), the axle must come out, the inner CV joint taken off, and the outer boot slides down the axle to the outer CV joint that is "fixed" to the axle. It's a messy job, but doable as I had a torn outer boot when I acquired mine, so I went ahead and replaced all four boots and repacked the CVs. You "might" be able to replace the inner boot without removal...I don't know.

When I had one torn boot I figured it was age and not road debris that caused the tear. If that boot was hard enough to tear the rest would soon follow. I personally can't imagine replacing just one boot unless you feel sure the problem was damage from an object. All the CV joint boots on my car were original. All have been replaced.

That was my logic too...she had less than 50K miles on her back then, but time takes its toll on rubber.

KC911-thanks for that. I wasn't even thinking about the G-50. I was thinking 915 earlier, that was a good catch.

Just did this last weekend for 3.2 trailing arms, the only way I could get nut open was heavy duty impact wrench. I had 3feet breaker bar but I had no chance to open it (maybe easier if they are attched to car but I bought whole 3.2 supension so they were separate). Now still need to get hub and and handbrake unit removed. :D