well, found a nasty hole in my left front wheel cv boot. grease all over my rim. SUCKS> anyways, how hard is it to replace it, any directions? I am very handy! Where and how much can i pick up a boot for?

 

not gonna be a jerk and say search but this would have been easily answered had you. however, i'll help you out...not only have i read it but i talked to a trusted mechanic today...it's better/cheaper to just replace the whole axle. i need to do the same soon. goodluck

 

courtesy nissan sells a CV boot replacement kit. runs about $21-$25. not hard to replace, just takes some time. a brief run through:

you need to take off the drive shaft, which means you need to drain the tranny fluid. remove the cotter pin from the end of the driveshaft. the nut holding the driveshaft is 36mm - you'll need a big breaker bar to get that off. then the 2 bolts/nuts(17mm/19mm) holding the strut to the hub have to come off. the tie rod needs to be unbolted from the hub(19mm) and knocked loose. unclip the brake line and ABS sensor line from the strut. now you should be able to push the driveshaft out of the hub while swinging the hub out of the way. if it's the drivers side, just pull the driveshaft out. if it's the passenger side, there's 3 more 12mm bolts that you have to remove from a bracket mounted to the block. you may want to take off the spash gaurds for better access.

sheesh, this is taking longer than i thought...

once the driveshaft is off the car, take off the two clamps holding the old cv boot onto the driveshaft. you don't want to do this next part inside on the carpet. it's messy. pull back on the larger part of the boot to expose the cv joint. since you're doing the outer boot, just hammer off the cv joint. if you're doing the inner, then you have to remove a thin metal retaining ring and the joint will just slide apart. i know the inner joints have a snap ring that you'll need to remove to get the knuckle off, i'm not sure about the outer since it's been awhile since i did that one. once the knuckle is off, you can slide off off the old boot. then clean the parts you took off with degreaser. make sure you get all the dirt out. then you basically just put everything back in reverse order - slide the smaller clamp onto the driveshaft and slide the boot on. make sure you apply the grease to the bearings when you put them back in. replace the snap ring after you put the knuckle back on the splines(inner). fill up the boot with the supplied grease, slide boot over cv joint, use the supplied clamp to secure the boot. everything else is just reverse.

someone can fill in if i missed something. can't believe i just typed all that.

 

sx7r - Very well documented!! The outter joint is a snap ring also. The joint will come off the splined shaft with some effort. The ring stays on the shaft. I've actually had an outter joint fall apart while doing suspension work. That ring doesn't hold so tight, especially on remanufactured shafts. I think the best way to get the outter joint off would be to put the shaft in a vise, put a small block of wood on the outter joint, that way you don't damage it, and tap it off with a hammer. Make sure the CV joint doesn't go flying when the ring lets lose!

It's actually an easy job, just very messy.

You should check your CV joints every time you change your oil. As soon as you see signs of the boot letting go, ripping or any grease starting to come out, change the boot! If you catch it before any contamination gets into the joint, you don't need to replace the axel, just replace the boot, clean and regrease the joint and you should be set for another 100K miles.

 

CV boot or axle replacement sounds like lots and lots of grunt work.. I dread the day I have to change mine.