[EMBPilot]

You guys wont believe this. I got it! I was away at work for 5 days, and thought about this... even though the new axle was on the way, I wasn't quite ready to just give up and sell this core axle that ive screwed up this far. so I cleaned everything completely and went back at it. Soaked both ends of the inner race in break free, and let it sit. Heated the CV with the torch again, and this time, I changed my approach....

With the bottom of the inner race sitting on the top of the vice, using a closed end 11mm wrench that had an angled handle on it I was able to lay the closed end on of the wrench the axle, hold the wrench and really hit at the wrench head. Cursing loudly and hitting hard, it budged past the end, then it was actually pretty easy to slide off. I cleaned the burrs up the top of the inner race, and the axle splines appeared to be fine.

The new boot got here today (for this axle). And the old CV really looks to be in good shape, no scoring, grooves or cuts. I got the thing back together about 4 times, but it would be completely locked, then just kept trying different angles and rotations and it finally locked in where the whole joint would 'extend and not fall apart' and the inner race would angle. It was a shocking moment; I may have actually cheered out loud.

So I think the plan is to simply repack this thing and sell it, recoup part of the cost of the new axle. And just use the new axle that'll be here just in time for me to leave for work again for 5 more days away from home (figures right).

I thought about maybe using this axle on the other side of the car, but I don't want to fix something that's not broken.

Two questions and feel free to comment on the above of course...
1) should I use lock tight on the triple square bolts when I torque them down to 30 pounds?

2) can I repack the joint completely from its cleaned state while its all together, or do I need to pack it with grease while its apart, then assemble it together and put it on the axle?


You guys rock, thanks for keeping the faith!

Kevin