I was in the middle of replacing my struts when I noticed the hub would not flex up to the strut for attachment. After research, I found that the inner cv joint can pull apart when bending the hub out of the way to get the strut in. I removed the inner metal clamp and slid the boot away to the outside. Then I lined up the three bearings, raised the hub, and tapped the joint back in place. Grease is everywhere but at least it's back in.

Moral of the story.....be very careful not to pull the inner cv joint apart when replacing struts or doing suspension work.

Here is a blog for reference:
http://www.cvjoint.org/tripod-joint/#more-64

 

I bought a packet of cv joint grease and a universal clamp at autozone for about $6. I will put the grease in to replace the grease that fell out and I will use the universal clamp rather than the original clamp to hold the original boot in place on the inner joint. Hopefully the other side wont pop out but I will be more careful because I know that it is possible now.

 

Yes the inner joint of ANY cv axle is able to pop out. The only way to get it back in is line it up TOTALLY STRAIGHT and heave her back in.

Could you not push it back in? There are physical slots to the in-board joint that they "slide
" into.

 

In retrospect, I probably could have done it without pulling the boot back. I ended up removing the large inner clamp and pulled back the boot to align the cv axle and shoved it back, repacked it with grease, and then put a new clamp back on which was horribly difficult to do while its on the car.

Once I did that, the strut went back in easily.