Remove outer CV joint from axle

Anyone have any sure-fire method of getting the outer CV joint off the axle?

I am trying to replace the outer CV boot.

I've tapped and tapped (pounded) the inner-race to try and get it off the axle - but it hasn't even budged.

I've found some methods via searches, but they all apply to the axles/cv joints that use a bolt instead of a nut (they drive the bolt all the way through, and basically press the joint out.

No such luck on a 2004.

take a rubber mallet to it and it will knock off. does take some force due to the c-clip

The axle is out of the car in a vise correct?

If so, no real advice other than 'hit it harder'.
This How-To might help visualize things.

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?3665476-Outer-Axle-boot-DIY

Just did this job a couple weeks ago on my car.
I used a big slide hammer puller combo.
I left the old axle nut on shaft put the 3jaws under nut and taped them together to stay put,let it hang and give the slide hammer one good pull.popped off no problem.
I borrowed the tool from the auto parts store.

csstevej said:

put the 3jaws under nut and taped them together to stay put

Click to expand...

Sort of off topic, but if you haven't tried one of these pullers with the cage that holds it in place then you don't know what you're missing. Definitely a quality item.
http://www.posilock.com/ManPullers/3jawman.htm

They also have a kit with the puller and slide hammer, but I've never tried that. If I needed that I would probably rent one from parts store as you did.

Ok, I managed to get the CV joint off the axle (by holding the axle with one hand, then banging down on the CV joint with a rubber mallet, - and I do mean banging).

The bum part was that the grease was all perfectly clean - I figured I wouldn't need to bother tearing the joint all apart and cleaning. However, when I banged with the rubber mallet, all kinds of tiny little bits of rubber worked their way into the grease...

Anyway, I managed to get it all back together.

Just one question: I am to supposed tap the joint back on until the cir-clip is engaged. Ummm, how do I know that has happened? I didn't hear any sort of click, or feel any sort of snapping - which, given the size of the metal parts, versus the little clip, and the oodles of grease - would seem normal, even if the clip were properly past by the splines.

I just hammered away, til it didn't seem like it was going any further. Then hammered a bit more for good measure...then tried to pull the CV back off - it wouldn't budge, so I figure I am good?

PS - to anyone contemplating this repair - if you can find someone to do this for $100 labor, I'd probably run with that. I do a lot of work myself on the cars, in part to save money, in part to be certain the work is done correctly - however, this job, without immediate access to all the proper tools, and the experience of having done it dozens of times, turns a one hour job into a big fiasco.

Granted, all my repair jobs are like that - but, most repair jobs run more like $300+ - thus making it more worthwhile to do it myself.

puntmeister said:

Just one question: I am supposed tap the joint back on until the cir-clip is engaged. Ummm, how do I know that has happened? I didn't hear any sort of click, or feel any sort of snapping - which, given the size of the metal parts, versus the little clip, and the oodles of grease - would seem normal, even if the clip were properly past by the splines.

I just hammered away, til it didn't seem like it was going any further. Then hammered a bit more for good measure...then tried to pull the CV back off - it wouldn't budge, so I figure I am good?

Click to expand...

Yup, you're good. I slide the joint down the shaft until it stops at the clip. One good whack drives it home. Pull on it hard to make sure its seated and you're good to go.

What you want is those stretchy boots, they slide right over the whole cv joint then you just strap them up, job done.

If you can't get one though two pairs of hands are definitely better than one for this job.

Seatman said:

What you want is those stretchy boots, they slide right over the whole cv joint then you just strap them up, job done.

If you can't get one though two pairs of hands are definitely better than one for this job.

Click to expand...

those are for lazy mechanics, you still need to take the joint apart and grease it

CV joints are easy , just messy though

Highly reccomend Redline CV joint lube. The inner joints are the ones that need more attention , the grease tends to dry up

Dimitri16V said:

The inner joints are the ones that need more attention , the grease tends to dry up

Click to expand...

+1, especially if the heat shield is not put back on after someone has been mucking around in there (visible here as the white piece shielding inner CV from the extreme heat of the turbo).
If your car has been in the hands of a somewhat lazy or scatterbrained mechanic in it's lifetime then it may be missing that heat shield. If so you need (a) to re-lube your inner CV, whether it's complaining or not, and (b) find/make a new heat shield.

Dimitri16V said:

those are for lazy mechanics, you still need to take the joint apart and grease it

Click to expand...

How do you figure that? Most boots just have a small split and have thrown grease out so the cv joint is still clean. Cut off the old boot, pack with new grease and fit new stretchy boot. It's nothing to do with laziness, I mean you've stripped the car down anyway but sometimes that's all it needs.

If I had a cv joint and it was full of crud I'd be waiting to just replace it. If the dirts gotten in it's going to go pretty soon anyway.

Inner joints are different but stretchy for an outer if that's all it needs.

I just did my 05 B5.5. I like to use a large slide hammer on the axle bolt. It's not the number of bangs that gets it over the spring clip. It just takes one really hard bang!

In my case, Seatman was right - the tear in the joint was such that grease squeezed its way out, but no dirt could realistically go in. But, like I said, I managed to dirty up the grease during the process of removing the joint from the axle....

As for the stretchy boot - is that the kind you need the funky tool for (that stretches the boot apart, and allows you to put it on over the joint)?

If so - might make sense for a shop that does this dozens of times - but for a home-brew DIYer, the tool cost would make it unfeasible.

If I had to do it all over, I probably would have just left it all alone, and waited to change if/when the joint went bad - I had patched the tear with rubber cement - it didn't appear to properly patch the tear - but, when I took off the boot, I could see the patch did in fact work (kept more grease from coming out, and not much ever made it out in the first place). Given the headache, and the possibility of creating new problems in the process, this falls into the category of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Then again - I would agree with other posts/threads which state OEM axle is best - so waiting for the joint to go bad might not be the best idea. I haven't seen a Chinese version, or a rebuilt version - but, having seen the inner parts, they look to be very high quality - with 200k miles, mine were nearly flawless (only signs of wear were on the very inside of the joint, where the bearings go during a sharp turn - looks to be a weaker metal than the rest). I can't imagine a Chinese version is as well built. The Chinese will cheat every way they can - and it is easy to use lower quality metals.

As for the banging to get it off - yes, that's it - it just takes one hard blow (to get it past the retaining clip). Unfortunately, took me awhile to figure that out (repair manual said to "tap it off".....

Something like a 2L coke bottle and silicone spray works fine too lol

"Something like a 2L coke bottle and silicone spray works fine too lol"

Now you tell me I can see how that would work.

To be honest, other than the part about having to bang off the joint (which would go pretty quickly and painlessly, if you had done it before, and knew what to do) that part of the process wasn't so tough. The much bigger pain is getting the axle off the car in the first place, then back on....I managed to get it off & on without removing the ball-joint and/or tie-rod, but it was a bit of a hassle.

You cut the bottle and roll it into a cone shape, place it over the cv and then push/pull the stretchy boot over it.

Dimitri16V said:

those are for lazy mechanics, you still need to take the joint apart and grease it

CV joints are easy , just messy though

Highly reccomend Redline CV joint lube. The inner joints are the ones that need more attention , the grease tends to dry up

Click to expand...

I did both my axles on the 1.8t and they were a joke. When i had to do the inner on my tdi it was mission impossible to get it back together and be able to swivel it.

Seatman said:

You cut the bottle and roll it into a cone shape, place it over the cv and then push/pull the stretchy boot over it.

Click to expand...

Never thought of that, great idea! The shop i used to work at just used the pneumatic boot expander to stretch boots over the cv shaft, worked great. Will try the coke bottle idea next time

Not to hijack, but what is a good boot brand to buy? I've used the cheap ones from advance auto and the are shot. Some actually get tacky and disintegrate.

Is one worth the money?

jjcsnlynn said:

Not to hijack, but what is a good boot brand to buy? I've used the cheap ones from advance auto and the are shot. Some actually get tacky and disintegrate.

Is one worth the money?

Click to expand...

Lobro , GKN , Febi

when you put the axle back in, do you have to grease the inboard joint again? It is covered in grease from when I took it out but it could have lost grease?

If you had the axle out , you should clean and degrease the inner joint anyway

That seems reasonable.

In one "how to" i saw that the inboard cv joint bolts were marked/numbered. Is it necessary to do this?

Lastly, does anyone have the grease specs for the inboard and outboard CV joints. I can't seem to find them conveniently listed. Seems like a certain amount should go in the bearing and a certain amount should go in the boot?

Sorry for all the questions. I just want to make sure I do this right.

You should mark the race with the outer part of the joint

Use plenty of grease and put some in the flange of the inner joint

Thank you for your help. i completed the work last night. Commuted to work this morning with no further clicking sounds or any new issues.
Thanks to the several CV related threads here on TDI club, I took back the chinese axle replacement and performed the bearing + boot replacement.
It took me ~4 hours to complete but I tend to move very slow and methodically. Hopefully I didn't make any major errors and hopefully the next time around will go a little quicker

it is always faster , easier the second time

Dannyboy said:

Yep second time,half the time.

Think most people have problems getting the cv joint off is down to that C-spring. Easy way is to pull snd keep tension on it and one swift tap on a big drift with hammer and pop, off it comes

Click to expand...

"POP" is the best word to describe it! Haven't done one of these cars yet, but my first and only experience was on a Toyota Corolla and it taught me that "popping" it was really the right way of approaching the retaining clips. I had a crowbar (no room to swing a hammer- used the crowbar to snap it) and had to dig down in my gravel driveway in order to get proper clearance... not fun, but a good "learning experience."

i tried to pop the CV joint off using a gear puller combined with a slide hammer. I think the slide hammer I was using was too small, not enough mass. In the end I just smashed it off the end with a hard rubber mallet.

Quick question: Is an alignment required after a CV joint replacement?

if you have NOT taken the 3 bolts out of the ball joint attaching it to the control arm and just popped it out of the spindle , and popped the tie for from the spindle you really have not changed any alignment enough to cause issues.

I am sure many will disagree but any decent mechanic will tell you it's not really necessary.

There's no need to disconnect the ball joint in order to remove the driveshaft on a MkIV... some people pop out the front bolt from the LCA in order to swing the knuckle outwards, but... given the fragile nature of the captive nut in the subframe, that's not a great option either... the Left driveshaft can be maneuvered out, and the Right one requires gently compressing the strut using a jack - careful not to lift the car off the jackstands... it's tight, and one needs to find just the right angle, but it can be done...

Yuri

I unbolted the ball joints, and put them back into the right place. I guess that is one good use for NH road salt.

Alternatively you could mist the ball joint bolt area with some spray paint.