Last week I noticed that one of my cv boots was blown out. I also noticed that one of the boots on the rack was busted also.

So, I'm going to replace the halfshafts on both sides, along with the tie rod ends, ball joints, control arm bushings, rack boots and brake pads.. I figure if I'm down there, I'm doing it all just to be done with it.

What kind of time am I looking at? I was thinking 5 hours, but it sounds like the rack boots are a real pain in the ***.

 

they might be if you cant fet the end off.

if you havent done it before without a fsm it mighjt tale a weekend. but if your into it and detail oriented maybee a day.

 

I can be real efficient as long as I'm not sipping on the drinks.

 

are the half shafts bad? just because the boots are gone doesent mean you have to replace the whole shaft.

 

no. but i'm replacing everything else and really don't want to touch the front end ever again. do it once and be done forever

The car has 89k on it and is 20 years old. more than likely I'll have it for another 100k as long as there are no deer or car accidents

 

some times its best to leave things as they are though. it usually takes more punishment than that to screw em up

 

Winter is coming up, which means tons of road salt and sand. I'd rather do the halfshafts now than later. They put so much of that stuff on the road.

I really don't want to do the rack boots. That is something I'd really like to leave alone, and I'm actually thinking about doing just that. It just sounds like too much of a pain in the ***.

 

Why take a chance? If the boots where split, who knows how long they have been like that and what crap has gotten into the CV joint. Besides half shafts are cheap enough you might as well replace them. My experience rebuilding half shafts says it's more pain than it's worth. It's a horrible mess, and the chances are even with the new boot, is the life of the CV joint is much less than replacing the shaft.

S

 

Matt, my thoughts is if you're already in there, just do it. You'll have the satisfaction of knowing you took care of it, and not have to worry about it for the winter.

S

 

yea rather only take care of what needs to be done then just change things that is good still

 

I did teh steering rack boots today. absolute pain in the *** at first. both were wasted.

Passenger side was 15 minutes, including pulling and replacing the tie rod end.

driver side turned into 2 hours and i started getting fairly pissed off. But i figured out the trick to getting the boot on the rack on that side.

take a 3" hose clamp and cut the screw part off. wind it up to compress it, then fit it inside teh boot. you can do this from outside the drivers side of the car. this expands the boot so that it will fit over the end of rack. once you get it over, carefully fish it out. took less than five minutes.

tomorrow is the ball joints and halfshafts. woulda done it today, but had to order a 36mm socket that i didn't have.

 

alright, got it done.

10 hours total. 2+ for the boots, and under 8 for the axles and ball joints. this includes some time waiting for a ball joint since 1 was defective, and 1 hour ****ing with the driver side axle, which i discovered had mis-machined threads. the passenger side is kind of a pain in the ***, due to the bearing carrier. driver side is easy.

tomorrow its in for an alignment, then it's finished.

this will be the last time I buy a really old car with low mileage. **** that sits falls apart.

 

Now you tell me...I wish I'd thought of that trick to get the boot on about a year ago. I remember trying to roll up some stiff plastic sheet inside there but it didn't have enough force to expand the boot. I'm guessing it took me over 3 hours to get that one blasted boot on.