Wierd thing on CV joints

[sacoffee]

Had the car up on jack stands to paint the calipers and saw some grease under the wheel well ... Crawled under the car and the grease is coming from the CV boots, just installed about two months ago. They are all intact with no tears, it appears the grease is coming out from under the boots on the large ends, both at tranny and wheel hub. Wierd! Anyway I changed the clamps at the tranny, didn't have time to remove the axles to change the ones in the wheel hub.

Anyone have this happen before? Maybe I packed too much grease?

I cleaned the grease and will check later this week to see if it's still coming out.

[ManniB]

Steve,

are you sure the grease comes from under the boot? On my '80 SC, the joints had been installed without the gaskets between the joints and the flanges and that caused the grease to spread on my undercarriage.

Regards, Manfred

[sacoffee]

Hey Manfred, yeah I'm sure ... The grease was built up on the bolts where the grease slipped out from under the boot

[ManniB]

One more (wild) guess: the Porsche PET only shows a clamp at the big end of the boot. If you, in addition, have added clamps to the small inner ends of the boots, this may prevent air from exiting the boot during movement and thus push grease out the big end (I told you it's a wild guess ;-)

- Manfred

[Jdub]

+1 on what Manfred said. Most folks might put a zip-tie loosely around the small end of the boot just to snug it a bit - no more. A hard clamping at the small end will force an accordian-like action that will eventually cause a rip via cycling of the material back and forth.

But do keep looking into the wheel wells. And be sure to re-torque those hex bolts!!!! If you have performed an R&R on them you absolutely need the retorque to ensure they do not work lose. Don't delay this task!

[KTL]

To the original poster, what year car are we talking about here? Reason I say that is because of the details other fellas shared. 1985 and older CV axles have a different type of sealing method, using a pesky gasket between the CV joint and the receiving axle flange- at both ends. The 1986-up axle uses a grease cap which does a real good job of sealing.

However, if the sealing is good, regardless of axle type, you still can get leakage that is not coming from the boot. Often times people will get grease in the bolt holes and that grease slings out.

The different axle types also have different means of clamping the boots. 1985-older have the CV end mechanically crimped to the boot flange and the shaft end secured with a strap. The 1986-newer have straps at both ends.

Got a friend who's a pro mechanic (Jeep/Dodge/Chrysler) and has been noticing this issue with his '87 Carrera. Can't seem to find the source of the grease even though he personally replaced the boots on axle and has periodically checked them to see if they are loose, split, whatever. Weird.....

[sacoffee]

thanks for the replies folks ... the car is an 88' M491. The axles are capped on both ends and attached to the transmission and wheel hub by the hex head bolts.

I used zip ties on the CV boots on the large and small ends. The boots have plenty of flex, no leaks out the small end that goes over the axle shaft. Leaks are definitely in the four large ends of the boots.

I did slide one of the boots off the large end to check how much grease was left in (plenty) and noticed the large end hub has V-groove in them but it is impossible to tighten the ties tight enough to depress the boot into the groove.

I plan to get under the car this evening to see if there is any grease after driving today .. will post some pictures afterward