Went for a 10hr ride today. I used up two tanks of gas and am well into the third. I'm not sure how many hundreds of Km's that I put on. Lots of full speed and lots of rough terrain.

Anyways, I stopped for gas and noticed a burning rubber smell. I just thought it was something on my exhaust. When i took a look, the inner CV boot at the rear was melting. The rubber was actually dripping off. The while area was too hot to touch...rear gear box all the way down to the wheel.

The machine wasn't driving any different or making any strange noises.

Has anybody ever had this happen before? No real info online.

I did read that the rear boots do seems to get ruined due to having a lift kit and spacers.

Should I worry about any other damage? I was going to just replace the whole axle. I will get the damaged one rebuilt and save it for the next time.

Thanks,

Tim

 

I've seen this happen before with lift kits. Ribs in the boots will over lap from the extreme angle of shafts.Friction can slice a boot in half and I've seen some like yours melt from the heat.Most lift kits warn about excessive drive line wear and things like this just comes with the territory.Plus cv joints tend to run hotter under extreme angles. Check/repack the cv if necessary when replacing the boot.Supposedly tougher boots out there for these,but expect higher maintenance no matter what you do or use.

 

I guess have 3 choices....

1. repack and replace boot (if it isn't ruined)

2. replace axle with a heavier duty version

3. remove the lift


since you have navigated this road before, what do most people find they have most success doing?

Thanks,

Tim

 

Option 1 is a change out since the boot are ready melted a bit and it will be thinner.

Option will only help if the new axel is longer to reduce the angle but that would involve longer A-Arms as well.

What size tires do you have? do they even need a lift kit? Good chance a stock set up can handle up to 27" tires without rubbing. My little 350 Grizzly easily fits 26" Zillas with room to spare. 26x9 Fronts and 26x11 Rears.

2 and a half tanks of gas is must be over a 200 mile ride. If this was mostly higher speed gravel road riding ,things will get much hotter then on slow ATV only narrow twisty trails where your lucky to hit 20mph.

 

I'd go the cheapest route by replacing the boot if the cv isn't damaged.Polaris had this problem in 2007 or 2008 on boots cutting themselves in half and updated the boots with wider spacing between the ribs so they wouldn't touch as much when at an angle. This helped a little but this was done without lift kits in consideration. Epi or Moose makes a heavier duty boot,but no matter which brand you go with expect higher maintenance if you keep the lift kit installed.

 

The new Polaris boots are garbage. Try a good aftermarket boot. With the lift it would definitely benefit going to a better axle from SuperATV, Highlifter, or try the Sixity XTA's. The Sixity's are by far the least expensive (make sure you get the XTA) but I have had good luck with them. The three listed have more articulation and will not get as hot as OEM with a lift. Another question is how does the diff fluid look and when was it changed last? If broken down/contaminated there will be more heat as well.

 

I changed out the boots today. They cost me $15each and took me an hour. The first one took 45min and the second took 15min. The learning curve is not too tough for cv boots....

They were moose and the spacing was much wider than OEM.

The only issue I ran into was keeping grease off of the surface that the clamp was clamping down on. No matter how I tried, some grease seemed to squeeze onto that area.

You guys have a problem with that too?

 

You have to see Yamaha's odd set up when changing a front outer boot.

I had to remove the still good inner boot to slip the new outer boot down the axel and into it's position, then I had to reinstall the "nothing wrong with it" inner boot once again.

You can't just remove the hub to install the outer boot, that would be to easy I guess.