What type of CV grease do i need?
 

I have nothing against buying from pelican but I need cv grease right now. What type of grease do I need? I was at a local walmart and decided to see what they had at hand and I saw two types,... I dont remember the specifics but one was all purpose and the other was high performance. I was thinkign high performance but then again I was at a walmart. So I didnt buy any. Going to a autoparts store today. What should I ask for. Thanks.

Checker Auto/OReilly and others sell a toothpaste tube for about $3 per CV.

A standard wheel bearing grease may not be of the correct viscosity or stickyness to hold up and cling to the CV internals.

It is such a crappy, dirty job doing all 4 CVs and even using thick vinyl gloves to protect my hands, I do not want to do it over.

GL
John_AZ

Oh great. Im looking forward to this now. hey if I have any questions i'll be here in this thread asking. I have to consult the FSM first. I am hoping I can get this started today. if not then tomorrow. it'll probably be an all dayer for me seeing that i have never done this before.

In my other thread you said mark them left & right and in & out. Keeping the in's with the in's and the out's with the out's. I assume I keep the fronts with the fronts and the backs with the backs right? Thanks.

I used a Moly based grease for mine per Clark's. I bought a small tub of it. There is a fair amount of space in the CVs to fill with grease.

What I use on our cars is Valvoline SynPower grease. It's a high temp, high performance synthetic grease. Valvoline.com > Products > SynPower > Grease SynPower > SynPower® Synthetic Grease

We used it in my kid's 951 when the CV's were clicking really good - like they were ready to die. And now probably at least 2 years later, they're still going strong.

What we did was pump grease into each CV joint till it was completely full and came out the other side - probably 200% more than we needed, but grease is cheap and I wanted to make sure we coated everything properly. I probably used more than a half a tube per CV.

I was using an air grease gun. I added a hard plastic tube to the end (rather than the standard grease nipple), and slipped that under the boot of each CV and pumped away. It took maybe 20-30 minutes per CV.

If you don't have a compressor and an air grease gun, you could do the same thing with a manual grease gun, although that'd probably be a whole lot of pumping...

I bought the grease probably either at O'Reilly's or Autozone.

http://www.mikepellegrini.com/Graphics/grease.jpg

If you like mud pies and monkey puzzles, rebuilding CVs can be a lot of fun.

I just used a good moly grease. Remember to flip them on reinstall.

Damn where can I get a air grease gun locally? LOL. Ok I have an idea of how much of a pain in teh butt this is going to be. Thanks guys.

If you have a compressor (which is the expensive part), you could probably buy a grease gun at Harborfreight. I got mine as part of a package with my compressor at Home Depot.

Failing that, you could probably rent a compressor/air grease gun for not too many bucks. Seriously, 20-30 minutes a side! And I didn't even get greasy...:)

I never took my axles off and reversed them - too much hassle - but it ain't a bad idea if your CV's are clicking already.

I have a compressor. Thats the easy part. See you got yours with your compressor at home depot maybe they have em sold seperately. Harbor freight is a drive for me. so,... we'll see.

I HAD an air powered one, until I forgot to use a regulator on it, and @ 200psi, the air chamber part of it broke right off. Anyways, I recently replaced my CV's, and each one came with a bag of CV grease, which is lighter weight than bearing grease. But just for extra protection, I pumped an extra 25 shots of high temp grease into each of them after putting about 100 miles on them. I used a grease injection needle to poke through the rubber, where it is flat.

On mine, I just jury-rigged the hard plastic tube in place of the grease nipple, then I cut the plastic zip ties on the CV boot. Then I stuck a screwdriver in under the lip of the boot, and wedged the plastic tube in under the lip. Then pump away.

When you're done, reinstall new zip ties and it's good to go!

I think the best way would be to take the half shaft out. It doesn't take that long and you will be sure to get plenty of grease in there. :)

Finally!!! I got started on my cv joints. The holidays is killing me! And so is my truck! The reason im tryign to get my cv joints done asap is so I can work on my truck. I need something to drive. My truck needs a ton of work! Head work, new heater core, radiator, and new belts. I'd do the water pump but im broke! All this is going to cost more than 800 in parts! I hope I dont have to replace my cv joints because that will really screw me up.

Anyways,... I have trhe cv joints off the car. I am wondering about this one step Im suppose to take via clarks-garage:

5. Use a punch and hammer to tap gently around the outside edge of the CV Joint to separate the collar from the CV Joint housing.

It would really help if he had pics. Seriously. Well I took a pic of what I think he's talking about:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1261705700.jpg

Am I suppose to whack where the yellow arrow is pointing in the direction of the yellow arrow? Is that what he means? If not can someone please tell me. I dont have enough money to experiment. Trial and error.

Thanks.

Correct you are, sir. Should come off pretty easily.

awesome. Thats whats I thought. Now,... I noticed that if i hold the shaft and turn the cv housing back and forth,... i hear clicking. it depends on how the housing is oriented to the shaft. Should there be any clicking at all when I do this or is it suppose to be solid tight? I took a ton of pics. Going to turn this into a tutorial. Emailed texas blake about putting it on his site seeing he's all for tutorials with pics.

HO, HO, HO,

Just another comment on correct grease to use from a very competent sourse, IAN at 944online. The grease needs to be sticky as well as lubricate.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1261719097.jpg



Shhhh, I hear someone on the roof.........................

Happy Holidays to All.

John_AZ

I bought Lucas high temp, high pressure grease which is says is for high speed bearings. I also got a hand pump grease gun with a cool needle attachment. Pics later.

Someone on the roof? Better get the 12 gauge,...

Should the CV's click when turn the shaft and housing by hand back and forth?

I dismantled one axle. I cleaned all the parts keeping track of what went where and how. I accessed the damage and found some wear marks. Now I am unable at the time to take pics of it because someone(girlfriend) cant find the charger to the camera. And for whatever reason i cant send pics from my phone to my email account.

I wont be able to post pics until maybe the end of the day. I have to wait to get back home ith my girlfriend so she can find the charger. I am impatient and want to know whether or not these joints can be swapped left to right without problem. My gut instinct is telling me no. But I dont know S@#$ about this stuff. Thats $400 dollars right there if they need to be replaced. On top of the 800+ needed to fix my truck. Santa aint given me cash this xmas either. I hope your xmas is turning out to be a lot better than mine.

Pics are in! Please tell me if I should even bother swapping them side to side. I am tight with money because im actually trying to fix my truck. BUT,... if these absolutely wont last I guess I will have to replace them. If they can be swapped,... do I even need to dismantle the other side or can I just pack it full of grease? They hardly have any grease in them. The pics are bad. I took them with my cell:(

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1261759691.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1261759698.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1261759705.jpg

Charles, that joint is junk.

And on the issue of injecting grease, while I applaud the creativity, the joints need to be disassembled and cleaned (old grease completely removed) before being repacked with fresh grease. Putting new grease over old grease (often of a different composition), is false economy and will cause your expensive CVs to wear out sooner.

Great. Thanks RM.

I bought 4 new joints:( Hey my shafts are all rusted and nasty looking. Would it be ok to sand the rust off and paint them for protection? I dont see why not but I mist ask just in case.

I got my new joints! Uhhhh they are tight! I tried twisting the inner of the joints and it wont budge. Is it suppose to be that tight?

Do I have to clean these before packing them with grease. They have a light coat of grease on them. Because of this I thought I should clean them.

Blast 'em with brake cleaner, pack with CV grease, and assemble. Oh yeah, and DRIVE!

Ok. I think I will mark them too now while they are brand new. Clarks-garage said to mark the orientation of the parts. I think I will dremel small alignment marks on them so that when it comes time to clean and repack them they will already be there for disassembly/ reassembly.

I hope I cant get my camera to work so I can finish taking pics,...

I disagree. In my kid's 951, the CV's were clicking badly, just one short step from complete toast. By "injecting" new grease into them, he's gotten a couple more years out of them - so far. His car (at the time) probably had 135K on it so I'm guessing they were original parts. He might have 150K on it now and it's still going fine, even with the humongous amount of extra horsepower his car has (around 350-400 RWHP). Not too shabby for maybe $10 of grease - 2 years and 15K+ miles.

Yeah, it would have been a lot better to tear them apart and completely clean and re-do them, but neither he or I was interested investing that much time.

A large part of owning an old Porsche is deciding "how much is enough" in terms of rebuiling/restoring our cars - because there's always a surplus of stuff that's either in imminent danger of breaking or is already broken.

If I win the Lotto tomorrow as I hope, then I can guarantee I'll immediately go entirely through my car and it will soon be new once more.

But absent the Lotto jackpot coming my way, then life will be full of compromises. Unless it's absolutely mission-critical (like say tires or brakes) then I'll probably continue on using the cheapest workable solution - even if it isn't the "proper" solution

If you can get a couple extra years or more out of CV's by re-greasing them, so be it. And then if they break, I can shell out the $130 for rebuilt ones (which actually are rather cheap) ... 1986 Porsche 944 CV Half Shaft/Axle Shaft | O'Reilly Auto Parts

I will have to add one qualification, and that is if you're tracking your car, all bets are off, because then the definition of "mission-critical" can change a fair bit.

But otherwise, I'm looking at best bang for the buck...

:)

No offense, Mike, but the time investment is pretty damn small. I had a joint let go once on my 914. . .calling and waiting for a tow truck took more time and money than cleaning and repacking the joints. . .

Additionally, if you are really into getting the most mileage out of your CVs, rotating them from position to position will allow them to outlast the car. That is what we call "bank for the buck". . .

Like gramma always said, the lazy man works twice as hard!

;)

I totally agree. It doesnt really take that much time at all. I was kind of putting it off because a few members made it out to be a nightmare but it was actually pretty easy. Messy but easy.

The joints in my opinion looked like garbage. I dont really like the idea of doing stuff to just get by, especially with my car. I wanted to just get by right now because I have a lot of work to do on my truck. After my truck I would of bought new ones because I dont like uncertainty. I bought new so now I will never have to worry about them. I will rototate them regularly and clean and regrease. My new ones will never look like the ones i pulled from the car.

The boots I pulled from the car are completely damaged free. it look slike the owner replaced the boots but never cleaned and repacked the joints. There was hardly any grease in there at all. when I dismantled the cv joints they literally fell apart. The new ones are tight as hell. very much new.

I am hoping to get some better pictures of the new ones and the used ones.

Anyone want the boots I pulled from my car? No damage whatsoever. $2 each plus shipping. I would hate to just throw them away.

Does it matter which way I install these new joints? I havent had to chance to see if there were instructions. lol.

Ok 2 questions here. By flipping the cv joint do I understand correctly that The cv Joints are cleaned/greased and installed exactly as they were and Flip the axel so that the side that was once connected to the transmission is now connected to the tire? Or are just the cv Joints flipped as if it were a coin and the head and tails part of the coin were flipped?

Question 2

In this pic that Charles took Is the Line Groove around the outside of the cv supposed to face away from the cv boot like in the picture or the oposite way and face toward the cv boot?http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1270496103.jpg

I am pretty sure the groove mark is for orientational purposes. Do not flip them like a coin. Take the joints off and clean them good. I wouldnt dismantle them fully. Risk of the bearing popping out and losing order is high.

Cleaning them all good and install them on the shaft the same way you found them. Then just swap the whole CV assembly from left to right and right to left. Keeping the tire joints with tire joints and tranny joints with tranny joints.