Well it seems today was a bad day for the boaters. 6 boats came in today for repair-3 while I was there alone! Anyway, my dealer had all the parts ready for me, except the four wheel drive shifter lever. He said well, why don't you just try it yourself, it's really not that difficult, and would save you a bunch of money. (he was going to not charge me for labor, but then the owner saw what needed to be done, made a comment about it) oh well, I'll give it a shot myself, see what I can't screw up! heh heh heh. So, do you guys have any tips, suggestions or comments on how to make the job go easier, or smoother? Anything to look out for or beware of? I'll be replacing the upper and lower ball joint assemblies, as well as the cv boot kit. It turns out I didn't actually break my joint, just ripped it out of the housing. The c-clip was bent pretty bad, but he gave me a new one, so that's nothing to worry about. I spent $67 dollars for two new ball joint assemblies and a cv boot kit, and estimate between 2-3 hours of actual work to get the job done from pulling the tire, to re-installing it. I've never done anything like this before, so is that a decent guesstimate?

Thanks for any and all help, as always, I greatly appreciate it. As my "tree" tricks have always worked in the past, I'll probably be winching it up a tree again to take the weight off the front end to help keep jacks and stands out of the way. Any other tips you can think of are more than welcome!

Thanks guys,

Mike

 

Mike,
Piece of cake,,, remove the wheel knuckel break parts etc. then depends on how tight the old ball joints are in there you might want to remove the upper and lower A-arm's then remove the C-clip and tap out the old ball joints then drop the new ones in. The Drive axle you should take compleatly apart and clean out all the old greese real good repack then put the whole thing back together. What I did was lay a small bead of black silacone around the cv boot. Make shure that you dont over pack the cv knuckel or youll have greese squrting out. When you have your drive axle apart and cleand up inspect inside of the outer housing for small cracks where the bearing ring meets. the service manual says to mark the bearing ring to the shaft for assembly purposes so the ring go back the same place (there are 3 rings) however I dont think this is to critital, I've never marked them. Tell ya what I'll e-mail ya the procedure.

 

To remove the castle nut from the hub you might want to use a couple pipe wrenches. One around the square part that the studs come out of and one to lossen the castle nut.

I recomend removeing your front shock, makes removing and installing the knuckle alot easier.
To remove the ball joints from the Knuckle I recomend lossening them then hammering a flat head screw driver or some kinda wedge to spread the knuckle apart so you can side it off the stub of the ball joint.

Then you might want to use circlip pliers to remove the circlips. Trust me, if you use them only one time they are worth buying a pair.

After you remove the cir-clips from the balljoints I recomend useing a small pulley puller to press the balljoint out of the a-arm. This will save you the trouble of haveing to remove and reinstall the a-arms later.

When you replace the balljoint it's recomended by cat that you use green lock tight(thats why it's so hard to get the ball joint out), but I didn't use it.

 

Boner's right, go out and buy a good circlip pliers. Thare well worth it and thay make the job a lot EZ'er. I didn't use that green lock tight eather.

 

Mike I tryed to e-mail the manual to your hot mail address but got it returned to me. Do you have another e-mail address other then hot mail?
Drop me a e-mail and I'll try again.

 

When I removed the castle nut from either my quad or my subaru I use to do it while the wheel was still on and there was weight on it, it seemed to make it much easier when you dont have air tools.

 

Thanks guys for all the help, I REALLY appreciate it! A.-I don't have any air tools [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] but B.-I DID go out and buy some retaining ring pliars, or whatever they're called [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] I figured that would save me the headache of a few of those circlips or whatever Boner called them-looks like there should be 3 of them? One on each ball joint, and one on the cv itself-of a much larger diameter???

Anyway, will give it a shot tomorrow morning, see how it goes. Hopefully I can get it all done before lunch if all goes well! Hey, should you use the entire tube of grease that comes with the cv stuff? I noticed Scotto said don't use too much or it will squirt out-stupid question, but how much is too much? I've always tried to use more grease than normal, as it helps keep out water, other crap. Any thoughts?

Scotto-
my email is mmundinger@hotmail.com make sure you don't use any caps, or else it won't go through right. That's the only email I've got. Guess I'll try to send you something, maybe you can just "reply" to it or something, maybe that will work.

Anyway, thanks again guys, greatly appreciated!

Mike

 

I read a lot of good advice. The only thing I might add is how I would remove the big nut in the center of the hub. The easiest way I have seen it done by far (if you don't have air tools) is to put a wrench on the nut while the quad is sitting on the ground, hold the brake lever as tight as you can for that axle (works for both the front and rear) and stomp hard on the wrench. Of course it goes without saying to make sure the wrench is oriented so it loosens the nut when the end is pushed down, and don't do it barefoot [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img] It may be awkward to reach the wrench, but you can put a LOT of power into it if you need to. Hopefully your Cat is still new enough it won't be rusted or siezed. Good luck.

Also, a CV boot tool will be of great help if you don't have any. It isn't absolutely necessary, but they sure are a help for $15, and then you will always have them. I guess you could always wait and get them until if you need them as the boot clamps will likely be one of the last things to tighten.