CV Joint replacement questions

I posted into the wrong forum so for background here's link to my post in the A4 forum.

Looks like I'm going to have to do the CV Joint in the drivers side front. From reading around on the web it appears that it's just as easy to replace the whole CV joint assembly with a reman one instead of just replacing the joint and boot itself. Any suggestions on where to get one? While I'm into it, what tools do I need and are there any good how to's on the subject?

Thanks! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

2 schools of thought. Replace the entire half shaft with a new one with re-manufactured CV joints already attached and greased on both ends. - OR - Replace the joint only with a new one. A messier and slightly longer job.

Remanufactured joints can be iffy. Sometimes they just crack 'em open, pop in new ball bearings and send them out the door. Other times, they'll actually do a good job, machining surfaces and matching bearing sizes. Remans will sometimes last for years, and sometimes fail in as little as 3 months. No real rhyme or reason. Usually Remans will have a lifetime warantee, so you won't have to pay for the part again if it fails, but you will have to spend the 2-3 hours under the car again.

A new joint is far more likely to last as long as your current joint has. A single joint will cost as much if not a little more than the whole reman half shaft. You'll have to get pretty dirty removing the old joint because that CV joint grease is sticky and messy and doesn't come out of anything. But likely once you're done, you won't have to do it again for a long while.

If you go remanufactured, be sure it has a lifetime warantee. I've gone both ways. The new CV's never failed, but then, I didn't have the car for more than about 25,000 miles after the replacement. I've also gone the reman halfshaft route 3 times. Once, I had the outer fail within 6 months, but the other 2 lasted for several years without problems. Not great percentages, BUT I will probably go the reman route for the rest of my life. Removing the old CV's was one of the messiest, smelliest things I've ever done on a car.

Believe it or not, I had the best luck with the reman half shafts I bought from Autozone. The one that failed came from the local Vw parts specialty shop.

Thanks for the quick reply. I've located a Reman that I'm going to pickup tomorrow!

I'm going to try to do the CV job tomorrow evening and I need to get my ducks in a row. I know I need the triple square bit to get the inner CV off. What else do I need? Will I need to press the shaft out of the bearing or will it come out easily? Will I need to buy some extra grease for the fittings? Any procedural stuff I should know.

Thanks again!
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you'll need a really large socket (i forget the exact size, someone help me out) for the axle nut and you'll need the retourqing procedure. i recently got this procedure, but i'm not 100% certain it's the right one for the b4 - it could be the a4 procedure. i've got to check the bentley to be sure.

torque thread here

Outer hub bolt is a 30mm, and you'll need a SERIOUS breaker bar to get it loose. I recommend not using a rachet, unless it's a Craftsman so that they'll replace it if you bust it. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif Take your wrench to Home Depot and find about a 4 foot length of iron pipe that will fit snugly over your wrench. That will give you all the torque you'll need.

Loosen the hub bolt with the car on the ground (obviously) then you can raise it in the air and loosen the triple square bolts on the inner CV. You'll probably have to loosen a couple. Take the car out of gear, rotate the wheel 60 degrees, loosen the next couple, repeat until all the bolts are out. Be sure to use a hammer and tap that triple square into the bolt head nice and tight. You don't want that thing slipping and stripping.

Then you're at the hopeing point, because you may or may not have enough clearance to get the halfshaft out. Try and pull the inner CV away from the tranny flange. Then try and work the shaft upward. If you try and try and still can't get it out, then you'll need to loosen the bolts that hold the lower ball joint to the control arm. This will allow the whole hub assembly to swing outward and give you the extra clearance you need.

The reason you hope to not have to do this is that those bolts are the wheel alignment camber adjustment. If you're careful and mark the position of the bolts before loosening them, you can get them lined back up pretty close to the original position, and won't need an alignment.

Once the you get the shaft free of the tranny flange, the whole thing will just pull right out of the hub. No pressing needed.

The shaft will probably come with some extra grease that you'll want to try and force into the open end of the inner joint. If it doesn't get yourself some CV joint grease so that you can make sure that is nice and juicy before re-assembly. The outer should be totally sealed.

Only thing that I'd recommend is replacing the big outer hub nut. As you can see from the torquing procedure, that thing sees some serious stress. I'd feel more comfortable with a new nut on there. Everything else is just pretty much bolt on. It's a couple hours of grunt work, and having a helper take the car in and out of gear when you're loosening and tightening the inner CV joint bolts is a big plus. Climbing out from under the car, taking out of gear, rotating the wheel, putting back in gear, climbing under car, only to see that you've over or under rotated is frustrating. Much easier if you can just ask somebody to take it out gear and you can rotate from under the car.

There is also a cork gasket between the inner CV and the

transmission flange. You will not get this with the reman

axle. In fact, some VW dealerships do not even stock this in

their inventory. You stand a chance of tearing this up while

struggling to get the whole darn thing out of the car, so

just be aware that it is there and carefully transfer it to

your new axle if it is intact. It keeps you from spitting

CV grease all over the engine and firewall.

You will probably want to read Pete's CV joint writeup

I just picked up my reman today from NAPA. Surprisingly it came with a new gasket! Looking forward to putting this sucker on! It has a lifetime warranty so at least I wont be out tons of dough till I get a good reman. /images/graemlins/smile.gif I usually dont buy parts like this from discount houses so I stick wiht Car-Quest or NAPA. We'll see how it holds up.

I took pictures as I was taking it off lastnight, I'll take some more as I put this one on. That way we'll have a how to.

Bookerdog, you were right! I was able to get the axle out without taking the ball joint loose! Now, lets see if I can get it back in. Thanks!

One more thing, the Reman I got from NAPA also came with a new Nut for the drive shaft. It was about 75 bucks after the core charge was taken away.

Not a bad deal!

I took a bunch of pictures during the install (it went very smoothly) so I can post a How To. Hopefully I'll have it up by the weekend.

Thank you all for you help!!


Thanks

[ QUOTE ]
Then you're at the hopeing point, because you may or may not have enough clearance to get the halfshaft out. Try and pull the inner CV away from the tranny flange. Then try and work the shaft upward. If you try and try and still can't get it out, then you'll need to loosen the bolts that hold the lower ball joint to the control arm. This will allow the whole hub assembly to swing outward and give you the extra clearance you need.

The reason you hope to not have to do this is that those bolts are the wheel alignment camber adjustment. If you're careful and mark the position of the bolts before loosening them, you can get them lined back up pretty close to the original position, and won't need an alignment.

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Why doesn't anyone just pop the knuckle off of the balljoint stud? Real easy, and no realignment needed afterwards....

NAPA ON LINE seems to have a deal 4.95 shipping per order, and they aare not affliated with mom-pop, so they severely undercut the locals

Bump for quick reference-I think I will be tackling this sometime this week....I bought a reman from FCP Groton off Ebay-$82 w/ shipping-no core-so I will save old axle just in case-I have the cheapie 12 points from autozone-it did come w/ rubber gasket and pouch of grease(to be stuffed into inner bearing).

Another axle question: My drivetrain isn't making any funny noises or anything, but when I changed the oil last week, there was a line of CV grease on the belly pan right underneath the inner CV. The boot looks okay (still clean), and the grease appears to be coming from between the flange and a rubber gasket on the inner end of the CV. Do I need to go ahead and replace the whole assembly, or just pull the shaft out and poke some more grease into the end and replace the gasket?

Was trying to replace my passenger side halfshaft, when the metal "cuff" that held the bearings in place got sideways, and dumped the bearings out onto the garage floor..


I cleaned everything.. I can see the bearings are asymmetrical, (some closer together than others). How do I get this back together? And is it easier to leave it apart for the moment, get the outer joint thru the wheelbearing housing-- and then putting it back together? Or do it on a bench, and start over.