Exchange CV boot

[Querys]

Hi folks,

I just replaced the outer CV boot at my 2013 Ford Explorer. Unfortunatelly I ran into an issue and I just wanted to check with you, if I made it correctly or if I made a mistake.

I started with loosing the nut of the CV with all wheels on the ground with compressed air. Lifted the car up and removed the right wheel, removed the nut from the tie rod end, removed the nut from the ball joint. This was a nightmare! The outer CV joint is always in the way and you are only able to use a wrench, the thread was full of rust and the ball joint was rotating all the time.
But anyway I finally got it removed with a lot of MoS2, oil and a steel brush.

Afterwards I wanted to remove the outer joint of the halfshaft but it was not removeable. I carefully used a dead blow hammer, but this caused that the inner joint popped out and I had the halfshaft in my hands.
I did not expect that and I really did not want that this happend.

Even in a vice I was not able to remove the outer joint. Instead I removed the inner joint (after removing the retaining ring). But this procedure was not my intention, however it worked.
I replaced all the stuff and put all together, but I expected, that I will be able to remove the outer joint with the installed halfshaft

Does anyone know where I made the mistake?
Thanks

--> all nuts removed, CV still in place

--> Inner part of the joint (with new grease)

---> Halfshaft with new boots and new grease

installed halfshaft with everything re-assembled.

 

[Keith N]

Hello
I am an engineer for a halfshaft Oem. The outer joint is typically held together with a special ring that is a round wire that engages the inner part of joint called inner race, to the axle bar. It is difficult to service. Often the halfshafts are not serviceable. You have to cut off boot and beat off or press off the joint from axle bar and hope you don’t crack the brittle snap ring grooves. Then fish out any chunks of metal that do break apart and re grease. Hence you can see why these don’t get serviced. We often press the joints to the axle bar with up to 4 tons to minimize the lash in the drivetrain (minimize that clunk you feel when you put it in gear). So taking joints off the axle bar splines can be hard. Luckily the joint on the housing was a slip fit and held on by a retaining ring that you removed.

What you did was about the only way to do it so kudos to you. On many cars and light duty suv/cuv if you pull out that inner joint called the housing from the tranny you better be ready for all the transmission fluid to come out also. A similar wire retaining ring holds that to the mating gear in the tranny. A big fork or special puller tool with a few hundred pounds off force can get the housing out of the transmission.

Nice job.

Keith

 

[reserved50]

always easier to remove the entire shaft if possible and work on it out of the vehicle. Trying to remove the outer joint in the vehicle might be tough if the outer joints snap ring wont budge. There are professional kits that allow you to cut the old boot off and stretch a special boot over the joint without removal of the axle. There are also split boots that are glued together without any suspension work but haven't heard any feedback on well they hold out. Problem with any of those is that its impossible to clean up any debris that may have entered the joint if you cant disassemble it.

 

[Querys]

Thanks guys! So hopefully this procedure did not damage my halfshaft. I drove around 200km with the replaced boots and it seems still okay.

But anyway on my Audi A4 it was quite easy to remove the outer joint directly at my vehicle.

 

[reserved50]

only "damage" to the inner would be if the boot wasn't clamped properly and might see a grease leak