To those thinking about replacing a cv boot themselves, read this first... (muy long)
10-24-2005, 10:46 AM
#1
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 2,320
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
To those thinking about replacing a cv boot themselves, read this first... (muy long)
The driver's side front cv boot tore on my car and I needed to get it replaced. Rather than take the car to the stealership I asked dscottjr to help me out. I gathered up the cv boot repair kit, 17mm allen socket (note that the front hub bolt is 17mm, rear is 14mm), and some other required cleaning supplies, etc. I head over to Donnie's around 5pm or so on a Thursday with me assuring him "It shouldn't take more than a couple hours." I think this statement was what officially jinxed us.
We make it to about step 2 (ie remove the bolt that connects the upright to the upper control arms) before we are officially fuxord. This thing will absolutely not budge. The likely cause of this is three winters spent in upstate NY and 82,000 miles worth of corrosion and such. So we wrench at that freaking **** of bolt until the nut snaps one end of the bolt right off. [insert explicatives here]. We knew at this point that my car wouldn't be leaving his place for the night because we didn't have a spare bolt. What we didn't know is that this would get worse and worse. Even with one end broken off that stupid bolt would not move. We wrench at the other end and "SNAP!" There went the other end of the bolt. [more explicatives please]. We tried punching it out with a hammer and punch, and with air tools, but we didn't get anywhere.
Of course we had been blasting the hell out of the thing with PB Blaster type stuff and using a jack to unload the joint, but this did no good. Even hitting the thing with a blow torch did no good. Now using the blow torch brings more problems because it destroys the bushing/boot at the ends of the control arms. We knew this would happen, but we were running out of options, so we did it anyway. So this is how Thursday evening ends (you may have noticed my post from that night).
Friday morning I start looking around for a place to get new upper control arms. The local dealership didn't have them in stock, but this was probably a good thing as they told me they would cost $212 a piece [!!!!!]. I looked around on the intraweb and find Blau has good prices on them. I give them a call and Keith sets me up with control arms, new bolts and overnight Saturday shipping from Wisconsin to Tennessee for $233. I really do have to say thanks to Keith and Blau, they got the parts out quick and at a good price. I had them the next day before 11am!
Sunday around 2pm Donnie and I start back on the car. That sob bolt, which is now equivalent to a pin, will not move. Punching it out failed again. Blowtorch failed again. Liquid wrench failed again. Time to bring out more tools. We finally managed to get that stupid bolt out by drilling the ENTIRE BOLT out. You can imagine how long this took to do. Literally the largest piece of this bolt that remained when we were done was the first tip that snapped off with the bolt. Most of the rest of it was reduced to metal shavings.
Before we finish drilling the bolt out we (ok, it was my dumb idea) decide to remove the ABS sensor as mentioned in the CV boot tech article in the Misc. section. That pos sob bolt snapped right off too. [WTF!!!!!!!!] So now we try drilling out that little hex head bolt, and this little bastard will not move. We realize that we can just take out the brake pad wire where it connects to the sensor and get enough slack that we don't have to take out the ABS sensor. "CLICK." Hey, what do you know, that little connector came right off no problem...oh, wait. [@&#*$(@(&*(&!] The brake pad sensor where it clips into the wire basically disintegrated. This ends up not being a big problem later, as the sensor was still intact. Tape held it together fine without having to just bridge a wire across the connector. Did I mention about this time a shot of air from the air compressor sends metal shavings into Donnie's eye?
We now take the whole damn shock assembly off because we have to replace the upper control arms, and that's the only way to do it. We do this, finally pop the cv joint off (which amazingly works without too big of a hitch). We used the bolt tightening method instead of taking off the whole axle. I don't know what the heck schondame is talking about when she said her car has hollow axles. Mine definitely was solid. I clean up the cv joint and of course drop the ***** out and don't know the original orientation of the pieces of the joint. A call to piggie tells us that the notched side of the inner part of the joint faces toward the wheel as does the skinny part of the outer movable piece of the joint.
We finally lube everything back up and put everything back together. The cv boot itself was actually pretty easy to do. We just got stuck on some stupid stuff like the bolts snapping and destroying the control arms, etc. Basically, I just want everyone to know that although this MAY be an easy job, it also might not. If you've got a car with a lot of miles that has seen salt and snow and rain, I advise you to just take it to the dealership and save yourself some pain. I had some very competent help (Donnie), and this job was still a huuuuuge bitch. Donnie did almost all the work by the way. I felt like I was Docslow pretending to work with piggie, haha. If I had to do it over again (keep in mind I would personally just go to the dealership), I would have snapped the end of the bolt off and then tried to tighten down the nut on the other side to get it to move. That might have worked, it's hard to say. Probably not considering what it ultimately took to get it out. Anyway, if you're going to do this job, I hope your bolt isn't stuck like mine was...
Huge thanks owed to Donnie for his help!
We make it to about step 2 (ie remove the bolt that connects the upright to the upper control arms) before we are officially fuxord. This thing will absolutely not budge. The likely cause of this is three winters spent in upstate NY and 82,000 miles worth of corrosion and such. So we wrench at that freaking **** of bolt until the nut snaps one end of the bolt right off. [insert explicatives here]. We knew at this point that my car wouldn't be leaving his place for the night because we didn't have a spare bolt. What we didn't know is that this would get worse and worse. Even with one end broken off that stupid bolt would not move. We wrench at the other end and "SNAP!" There went the other end of the bolt. [more explicatives please]. We tried punching it out with a hammer and punch, and with air tools, but we didn't get anywhere.
Of course we had been blasting the hell out of the thing with PB Blaster type stuff and using a jack to unload the joint, but this did no good. Even hitting the thing with a blow torch did no good. Now using the blow torch brings more problems because it destroys the bushing/boot at the ends of the control arms. We knew this would happen, but we were running out of options, so we did it anyway. So this is how Thursday evening ends (you may have noticed my post from that night).
Friday morning I start looking around for a place to get new upper control arms. The local dealership didn't have them in stock, but this was probably a good thing as they told me they would cost $212 a piece [!!!!!]. I looked around on the intraweb and find Blau has good prices on them. I give them a call and Keith sets me up with control arms, new bolts and overnight Saturday shipping from Wisconsin to Tennessee for $233. I really do have to say thanks to Keith and Blau, they got the parts out quick and at a good price. I had them the next day before 11am!
Sunday around 2pm Donnie and I start back on the car. That sob bolt, which is now equivalent to a pin, will not move. Punching it out failed again. Blowtorch failed again. Liquid wrench failed again. Time to bring out more tools. We finally managed to get that stupid bolt out by drilling the ENTIRE BOLT out. You can imagine how long this took to do. Literally the largest piece of this bolt that remained when we were done was the first tip that snapped off with the bolt. Most of the rest of it was reduced to metal shavings.
Before we finish drilling the bolt out we (ok, it was my dumb idea) decide to remove the ABS sensor as mentioned in the CV boot tech article in the Misc. section. That pos sob bolt snapped right off too. [WTF!!!!!!!!] So now we try drilling out that little hex head bolt, and this little bastard will not move. We realize that we can just take out the brake pad wire where it connects to the sensor and get enough slack that we don't have to take out the ABS sensor. "CLICK." Hey, what do you know, that little connector came right off no problem...oh, wait. [@&#*$(@(&*(&!] The brake pad sensor where it clips into the wire basically disintegrated. This ends up not being a big problem later, as the sensor was still intact. Tape held it together fine without having to just bridge a wire across the connector. Did I mention about this time a shot of air from the air compressor sends metal shavings into Donnie's eye?
We now take the whole damn shock assembly off because we have to replace the upper control arms, and that's the only way to do it. We do this, finally pop the cv joint off (which amazingly works without too big of a hitch). We used the bolt tightening method instead of taking off the whole axle. I don't know what the heck schondame is talking about when she said her car has hollow axles. Mine definitely was solid. I clean up the cv joint and of course drop the ***** out and don't know the original orientation of the pieces of the joint. A call to piggie tells us that the notched side of the inner part of the joint faces toward the wheel as does the skinny part of the outer movable piece of the joint.
We finally lube everything back up and put everything back together. The cv boot itself was actually pretty easy to do. We just got stuck on some stupid stuff like the bolts snapping and destroying the control arms, etc. Basically, I just want everyone to know that although this MAY be an easy job, it also might not. If you've got a car with a lot of miles that has seen salt and snow and rain, I advise you to just take it to the dealership and save yourself some pain. I had some very competent help (Donnie), and this job was still a huuuuuge bitch. Donnie did almost all the work by the way. I felt like I was Docslow pretending to work with piggie, haha. If I had to do it over again (keep in mind I would personally just go to the dealership), I would have snapped the end of the bolt off and then tried to tighten down the nut on the other side to get it to move. That might have worked, it's hard to say. Probably not considering what it ultimately took to get it out. Anyway, if you're going to do this job, I hope your bolt isn't stuck like mine was...
Huge thanks owed to Donnie for his help!
10-24-2005, 11:07 AM
#4
AudiWorld Super User
Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 9,779
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Lol, I feel the pain. Nothing is ever easy on these cars. Just don't do like me and drop
crap in the engine/tranny no-no spots. Why I had my drivers axle off just the other day(!%#$%@#!%!%#!!!) and the boots looked pretty good for 53K mi.
10-24-2005, 11:35 AM
#6
AudiWorld Super User
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 5,885
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
my car had ~30k and one winter in mass when i did the suspension. that bolt is seized as hell
terrible terrible design.
there is no other way that i know of to get it out without destroying the upper control arm boots.
we used an air hammer on my bolt with absolutely no result. i ended up just taking out the inner front lower control arm bolt and pivoting the whole bearing assembly out of the way. i'm not sure if this would work for the CV joint/axle stuff.
there is no other way that i know of to get it out without destroying the upper control arm boots.
we used an air hammer on my bolt with absolutely no result. i ended up just taking out the inner front lower control arm bolt and pivoting the whole bearing assembly out of the way. i'm not sure if this would work for the CV joint/axle stuff.
10-24-2005, 11:41 AM
#7
AudiWorld Super User
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 4,055
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
It's a total guess, I rebuild both CVs on my old 12v, with..
over a 110k and more like 6 central PA winters all in about 3 hours... go figure...
Then again, when I went to upgrade to SS lines, I ended up stripping the nipples on the old solid lines and had to replace both rear supply lines which involed dropping the entire rear subframe and took about 4 days and $300 for everyhing... PITA these cars are!
Then again, when I went to upgrade to SS lines, I ended up stripping the nipples on the old solid lines and had to replace both rear supply lines which involed dropping the entire rear subframe and took about 4 days and $300 for everyhing... PITA these cars are!
Trending Topics
10-24-2005, 12:12 PM
#9
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 2,320
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
You're right. Probably the best advice I can give is to see if the upper control arms to upright
bolt will come lose. If it will, go for changing the boot. If not, go see your favorite dealer/indy shop.