I was plowing through some mud and after I noticed my outer band on the cv boot came off. The boot is fine, but I need to clean and repack with grease. Does anybody know how to do this? I can't afford to bring to the shop every time a boot goes. Thanks in advance.

 

1st) remove the axle from the differential and put it on a work bench, tire removed of course.

2nd) Pull the boot back and clean all the grease and dirt out as best you can

3rd) There should be a C-Clip holding the cage holding the ball bearings in. Remove the clip

4th) Pull the cage and ball bearings out.

5th) Clean everything up

6th) Grease it all up

7) Put it back together


Thats if its really dirty and gritty inside, if the grease looks good and there is no dirt inside just check it over and seal it back up. I'm fairly certain thats how this goes, its been awhile since I did a CV joint.

 

I had the same problem. Here is a thread with the replies that I got.

Link to CV boot thread

Good luck, Nathan

 

I just finished replacing my inner CV boot tonight. It was actually pretty easy. There were a few things I wish I would have known when I did this.

I don't know if there is a special tool to take off circlips, but I wish I had one. I also didn't have a puller to pull the one part off of the shaft. There is a special kit made that makes it easy to fit the small end of the CV boot (about 1/4" wide) over the whole joint assembly (about 1 1/2" wide). It took me a while to figure out what to do, and I finally figure out something that worked pretty well and when I do it the next time will save me some serious time. I used a 4" section of PVC pipethat was 1 1/2 inches in diameter. I put the pipe as far into the large end as possible. I then inserted a flat head screw driver in throught the small end of the CV boot, and worked the boot around one edge of the PVC pipe. I inserted another screwdriver on the other side and slowly worked the boot over the pipe. You have to be very careful not to poke the screwdriver through the boot, but the boot is fairly tough. Once I did that, I was able to slide the axle through the PVC pipe and slide the boot off of the pipe over the piece it would fit over. I then re-assembled the whole joint. I am not sure if the inner and outer joints are the same, but I actually took all of the individual bearings out, cleaned them, greased them, and then re-assembled after I had the boot over the part I could not get off of the axle.

Another thing I wish I knew.... I have a fairly minimal tool selection. I had to go out and buy large sockets to get the axle nut off. I think that size was 27 mm. My socket set only went to 19 mm.

I bought my boot kit for $26 from EPI. Here is a link. I also suggest buying the banding tool to make it easy to put the straps on the boots. Here is the banding tool.

Good luck on your assembly. Thanks to everyone for the tips I received, it really helped me a lot, and saved me tons of cash.

Nathan

 

Next time you need a boot we have one that does not require a special banding tool. It includes one that works with a standard ratchet.

And the whole kit only costs $19.95

You can see it here: http://www.atvworks.com/products.asp?id=18