axle boots
 

i found that my driver side cv boot has cracked and blown it's grease everywhere. they all need replaced so my question is: how hard is it to do, where can i get the boots and what's it gonna cost me?

I just did this job a week ago on miy 92. Took me about 4 hours total. I am very meticulous and calculating. I'm sure a professional or some other guys here could do it in about and hour.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being easiest and 10 being hardest, I'd rate this a 5. The biggest pains are getting the axle nut off (32mm socket needed) and keeping grease from getting all over yourself.

I paid about $30 to do it myself.
I bought the inner and outer CV boot Kits from Advance Auto Parts.
Inner Front - Powertrain Components (PTC) 61159 - $15 + tax
Outer Front - Powertrain Components (PTC) 61160 - $15 + tax

If you buy the parts from subaruparts.com you will spend around $40 plus shipping. If you buy from a local dealer you pay quite a bit more.

The boots were made of nice thick rubber, but the boot bands SUCKED !!! I had to throw away the small ones and use regular hose clamps because they were too small. If I had to do over again, I would buy the dealer boot bands and save myself a lot of headache. Also, you can recycle the bands if you're careful when taking them off.

Good luck. Marc

cool. thanks for the info. i'll get to fixin it soon.

A few points to remember:

Wash out all old grease with a solvent (clean paint thinner or brake cleaner). The reason is that some greases are incompatible and you don't want that inside your joint.

Thoroughly dry and liberally grease the joints and the inside of the boot. Apply a thin layer on the inside of the boot making sure to get it in all the folds.

I agree that the OEM bands are the easiest to install.

As long as the axles are out, price out having them balanced to make sure they aren't causing any extra vibrations.

Doug

.... Or if your like me, you might just wanna replace the whole axle. Advance has a lifetime warranty one for like $70 or so. Keep in mind that once the boot breaks it lets crap in which isn't good for the bearing. Besides, you tend to get less greasy my way. If it just has a little hole in a boot though, we put silicone 2 in ours to fill the hole after I had a little mishap with the grinder. Seems to be holding nicely after a couple 1/4 miles and an autox.

So I guess an entire halfshaft assembly is balanced all at once? Have you done this with your half-shafts? Any corrective weights added?

I had it done once. The right rear needed a weight welded to it, the rest were fine. Oddly enough, the center driveshaft was the one that was the most out of balance when I had the U-Joints replaced on it.

Doug

I knew there was a tool for the bands! Depending on which bands you use for the boots, one of these boot band tools could be helpful.

http://www.thetoolwarehouse.net/shop/TTW423.html#3232

Also, I replaced my XT axles with remanufactured ones from AutoZone about ten years ago. As soon as I got them in ,they both started knocking around corners, the job was too big and I was too tired of messing with them to take them back.

Replacing the axles is a great idea. If you go this route, get some recomendations on where to buy quality rebuilt ones.

I generally stay away from rebuilt parts unless I or someone local that I trust rebuilds them. I never seem to have any luck with over the counter rebuilds.

I've heard that the rebuilt axles just use larger joint bearings to fill in the worn out area, but that could just be a rumor.

Doug

i'm thinking i'm just gonna go with boots just cause my axles make no noise and all but i still might just replace the whole axle. any other suggestions on where to find the axles from somewhere other than advance auto parts? autozone doesn't seem to have them anymore according to the website.

Anywhere you get 'em they can be bad from new. Its part of the rebuilding process it seems much like a rebuilt master cylinder.

Online I've heard good things about www.cvaxle.com but have never used 'em.

The outer joints usually won't disassemble (or easily disassemble) so you'll need to replace both inner and outer boots as you'll have to remove the inner joint from the shaft in order to replace the outer boot. (master of the run-on sentence)

The band tool you'll want, as an occasional user, is the KD 3191 on the page listed above.

Half shafts are not normally balanced as they are small diameter and don't spin very fast at all. You'll never see an OE unit with weights or grinder slots on them indicating any type of balance process. Regular driveshafts spin 3-4 ( insert axle ratio for exact multiplier) times faster than the half shafts and are balanced for that reason.

the hardest part about this process is not having anywhere but a city street to work on it at. what sort of tools will i need to disassemble the joints?