Okay, so in that case... does the boot just not seal any more? My wheeling incorporates lots of mud and occasionally "requires" water crossings... but if the boot doesn't seal on that end it seems kind of pointless to even have it there, other than as a dust shield. I'm sorry if I'm off base on this, I just want to make sure I've got it understood so that if I need to go digging for a new boot I can do that before I assemble everything.
Thanks for all the information so far, guys- the D35 tear-down was very simple thanks to all the posts I dug out here. The C-clip elimination will hopefully be a waste of time (fingers crossed) but in the event something does break from my skinny 34s, it'll be much easier to swap things out.