911vet

uh, yeah, you could say that. It took 2 hours, a broken breaker bar, and some jumping up and down on a cheater bar to get it off.
I had some help from someone bigger than me

theiceman

cool my 78 has LSD also .. I really notice it in the wet as you can get decent power through a corner.

theiceman

funny, I put my breaker bar on my audi , leaned it against the ground and backed the car up . Worked great , nothing like 2000lbs of car to help you out.

Sounds like the hard part is over, now it is just the messy part.

old man neri

Shannon:

Here is a write up Ian did just the summer on the subject.

Another DIY someone did on pelican.

Actually, I found Ian's rennlist page to be very helpful in not only his write ups but his many many links to other resources and DIYs.

mo_gearhead

QUOTE: "I'm not sure what tools I will need"
_________________

On my early car (1969), I had to use a hyd. press to remove/install these joints from the axles.

amr89c4

911vet,

Is the retainer a circlip or a snap ring? I can box up snap ring pliers with the Oeticker pliers. If its a snap ring, I need to know if its an internal or external release style. ie you expand the snap ring to remove it ot compress it to remove it. I don't know how the configuration of the retainer and want to make sure the nomeclature is correct, too.

amr89c4

My guess is external with the snap ring surrounding the shaft, but I don't know. I'll try to look it up later. Got to get back to work!

theiceman

external

Ijust used a set of needle nose and pulled them open. even better if you have the proper tool.

911vet

Pelican calls it a circlip. But I think it's a snap ring. You definitely expand it to release it.

Can anyone tell me if I could loose tranny fluid when I pull my CV joint out?
I'm trying to figure that out. Since it's a flange instead of a spline (is that right??) I'm thinking the differential will be sealed.

I drained my tranny/diff. But I don't want to put the new stuff in if I'm going to loose it when I pull the axle.

Brett San Diego

No, no loss of transmission oil.

I recommend completely degreasing the CV joints as iceman mentions so that you can inspect them. I don't see an issue using organic solvents exclusively to degrease. I'm talking pure solvents. As a chemist I have access to solvents, and I used hexanes and dichloromethane. If you use a degreaser product with detergents, then you will want to rinse with clean water to remove the detergents, but no worries with a pure solvent. It will not leave a residue.

I redid both my axles (all 4 boots) on my 78 because I had a couple of torn boots. Upon degreasing and inspecting, two CV joints were obviously worn and I replaced them. Two looked pretty good, so I reinstalled them (probably redone recently by a previous owner. I had no records, however). I had never seen a CV joint before, but it wasn't difficult to decide not to reinstall two of them (some pitting in the contact areas, and the finish on the ball bearings looked degraded/discolored, maybe from getting hot from running low on grease). But, I had no symptoms of a bad joint. As always mentioned, don't scramble the location of the ball bearings if you disassemble the joint, but you don't need to disassemble it anyway to clean, inspect, and install.

Regreasing and reinstalling is a really messy job. I manually packed as much grease as I reasonably could in the joint then smeared the rest inside the boot. You get to a point where as you try to pack more grease in the joint, it seems that you remove even more on your fingers when you pull away. Then you just give up and stuff the rest in the boot.

This sounds really stupid, but I could see myself doing it in my excitement to get things back together.... don't forget to slide the boot on the axle first before greasing and sliding on the CV joint.

Clean the bolts (if you will reuse them) and the bolt holes and threads painstakingly. Use fresh schnorr washers, if you use them. Retorque later on as Iceman says. After 1 year and 5,000 miles, I found more than half of my bolts were a little loose. A couple were really loose. I didn't use schnorr washers, however. I didn't know about them at the time, and they aren't a factory specified thing, but well known techs swear by them (Peter Z. for example).

good luck,
Brett

Peter Zimmermann

Shannon: Your CVs probably have 10mm bolts (thread size), and if they don't have Schnorr washers they can be added. If washers are already there, they can be re-used (but this is a judgment thing, if they're flattened out too much they won't have as much bite). Most of the loosening issues occur on earlier models that use 8mm bolts, which are torqued to 30 lb/ft. Your 10mm bolts must be torqued to 60 lb/ft (83Nm), and the easiest way to tighten them is to have an assistant turn, then hold, the wheel while you line up a bolt so that using your allen socket is the easiest. Try to torque the bolts in a crossing pattern (I do them at 40 lbs, then 50, finally 60) - your helper will be tired when you're done! Another thing to do that will lessen the chance of the bolts getting loose is to get the mating surface between the CV and the diff flange as clean as possible before you put them together.

911vet

Hey Pete and everyone: Thanks for all the advice. It is a huge help and I wouldn't even think of tackling this project alone if not for your help.

I plan to tear into the thing this weekend.

How important is it to use new bolts (assuming I have the 10mm)? And, forgive my ignorance, but can I buy Schnorr washers at NAPA/AutoZone? Or a hardware store like Lowes? Or are they a special order item that I need to start tracking down now? I don't see them on Pelican.

imcarthur

Good luck. As Pete mentioned pre-late 85 used 8mm bolts with washer PP # 999-523-103-01-OEM. I couldn't find one for 10mm. Not at Napa, Pelican or the local Pcar dealer. So I went without.

And I re-used the bolts too.

All was still very tight after 200-300 miles & I'll check them periodically.

Ian

Peter Zimmermann

Correct, no need to replace the bolts. One trick - use a small screwdriver and dig all of the gunk/crud (technical term) out of the heads of the bolts. That will allow you to insert the tool completely so you won't strip any bolts. Washers: Let your fingers do the walking, hopefully you'll find them. I've never bought from anyone but a wholesaler, so I'm not much help with this aspect - sorry...

imcarthur

And clean the holes in the diff with Q-tips dipped in solvent.

Have lots of rags & a big bottle of hand cleaner nearby. It is a messy job, especially laying on your back doing it.

Ian