Bill Ball

I did this job once on somebody else's car. A time-consuming total mess of a job. Cleaning the old grease out of the joints in my home shop created an EPA hazard. Next time I recommended rebuilt axles. About the same cost when you consider the labor. When it came time to do mine, I went rebuilt as well, from 928 International.

Ispeed

CV joints are expensive... Rebuilts from Int sound great, but you do not know how many miles may be on them. Rebuilding a known good half shaft is like money in the bank.
Grease washes off... Go price a new half shaft..

dr bob

Definitely a gloves-and-old-clothes project. I had one outer boot split at a roll, others OK. So only one CV to clean completely. It was still a mess. I put it in a plastic bucket with a trash-bag liner, poured paint thinner in with it after scooping as much old grease as possible. Then parts brush, and finally "exercising" the CV axially to pump the solvent through until it was clean. Final rinse with clean solvent then pack with new grease. It was still a real mess. Good news was that doing the other three didn't require the solvent flush since they were uncontaminated. I'm not sure the first was contaminated... Anyway, that was years and miles ago, and I don't anticipate needing to do them again soon. I managed to gift-trade for a set of boots at Bill's SITP last year, and having them here means I will never need them.

j.kenzie@sbcglobal.net

No personal experience, but 928 Intl rebuilds include machining of ball bearing surfaces and larger *****. They should be as good as new. Theoretically.
Dave

Bill Ball

I've not had any issues with the rebuilt units from 928 Intl. Talk to Mark about them. They appear to be good units too. Everybody knows I'm an almost total DIY guy, and I have no issue with someone who wants to repack and reboot their own, but at least with my facilities, cleaning these things was not worth the trouble.

Podguy

Gee you guys are whimps. This is not a big job nor is it that messy. If you break the nuts loose on the axle and then use a long extension and air gun to remove the inner bolts the axles can slip right out without removing the ehaust system. After that it is the cleaning tank and bench work. Just be sure to use never seize on the axle shafts.

Harbor Frieght sells a cheap 3/4 drive torque wrench. It will not get to full torque but will get you close enough. Best guess about a three hour job, less if you have prepared shafts ready to install.

I have some extra axles if anyone wants a spare.

Bill Ball

I guess I need to find a place in my garage for a "cleaning tank" and stop using the garage sink. With my limted facilities, not only was it terribly messy, but it took me hours to disassemble, clean, reassemble, repack and reboot the CVs, whereas swapping in rebuilt axles was less than an hour.

GregBBRD

I agree, completely, about the mess...even in my shop.

The "real joy" of doing a C/V joint repack is that it's the "job that never quits giving". Six months later, you will lean on something in the garage/shop that "caught" a blob of "hidden" C/V grease, which has been lurking there like a hungry rattlesnake, waiting for some unsuspecting person to come along and "attack".

It will, invariably, end up smeared onto your good clothes....or even better yet, you wife will "find" this little "hidden gem".

Part of the joy.

NoVector

Someone mentioned ~6 months ago taking a length of PVC pipe, putting an end-cap on it and then filling it with mineral spirits and sitting the axle in it. Then they took an air pump for a fish tank and ran an airline down the center of the axle and just let the grease bubble/gurgle away. Other than the flammable vapors, it sounded like a pretty neat idea.

dr bob

That's pretty much what I did, except I used a 1-gal plastic pail (former ex wall patching compound container...) with a trash bag inside. Trash bag allows you to sort of seal the top around the axle so there's no sloshing, and also makes cleanup a LOT easier. Pour the available liquid into the waste oil drum, greasy bag to haz-trash with the old oil filters and such. Plastic pail stays clean. I didn't try the air-hose trick, instead just pushed and pulled the axle section in the stub axle housing part so the liquid would be drawn in and out. It was probably more work then than I remember now.

Bill Ball

There is so much grease to flush, I wouldn't think the PVC trick would do much. I went through almost 2 gallons of mineral spirits. If you do both axles, that's four joints to clean, etc. What a pain. I guess I'm just not good at this job. Even Dwayne, the God of 928 DIY projects, spent 20 minutes cleaning each joint. Then you have to disasemble the outer joints, which often requires a press, before you can finish the job. http://www.dwaynesgarage.norcal928.org/boot.htm

Rebuilts are just way, way easier. We did Nicole's recently, and that's the way we went. The job was so quick and simple I had forgotten all about it. Oh, and we did George's as well. Again, so trivial I had forgotten about it. Had they wanted to disassemble, clean, repack and reboot all of those joints, I would probably never be able to forgive them.

Aloysius

+1 to the above wisdom. I would add to use some blue loctite on the transmission bolts (8mm allens) and make sure the surfaces are clean and dry when you do. Believe it or not i had them all back out. And the drivers side came off; thankfully at a slow speed. Torque to spec, paint mark them, then check them after a few days of driving just to make sure. Also, there are some rubber seals, upgrades from the cork, i think are better.

Nicole

Yes, mine came from 928 International, and seem to be working exactly the way I would expect. Thanks again, Bill, for installing them!

Randy V

How about this:

Gary Knox

kevin,

IF you decide to do both at the same time (probably ~85% as much time required as the total if you do one at a time over a month or so period), remember that most of us install the current left axle on the right side and vice versa to change the stress points on the ***** and carriers.

Also, don't forget to remove the axle bolt that is at the wheel BEFORE you jack the car up (and with car in gear and parking brake on). That ~350 ft lbs torque nut is removable with the harbor freight 3/4" drive socket set. A pipe extension might be needed. 175 lbs at 2 ft from the center of the nut, of course, applies 350 ft lbs for tightening it.

Dirty but relatively straight forward repair.

Gary