2002 S60 Issue With Axle When Replacing Control Arm

[velorider]

I was replacing the control arm on my wife's 2002 S60, following the directions on this youtube.com video: http://youtu.be/DnwksNuAPaQ?list=FLZhOuSfW7IV0px5YH3oO0Vw

When removing the control arm I ended up hitting the strut, brake, etc unit and is swung outward. There is a boot on the axle where it enters the transaxle so I can't tell if I pull it out or dislocated it. To remove the boot would require me to zip tie versus the nice metal clips on there now. Any suggestion from all you guru's as to how I can check or tell?

I've attached a couple pictures if there is helpful.

2014-08-08 18.28.23.jpg (281.54 KiB) Viewed 913 times

2014-08-08 18.28.31 (1).jpg (301.64 KiB) Viewed 913 times

[precopster]

The joint is a 3 bearing design with cutouts in the inner cv to house the 3 bearing races.

If you push it straight back in that's all you need to do ensuring that it moves freely both in and out by about 60mm.

Once the axle is back in place it will be fine.

[xHeart]

Is that a tear on the boot?

[velorider]

Yeah, its small hole. I will have to replace soon I guess.

[xHeart]

Was the engine raised from below to install the two long LCA bolts to subframe?

You would want to replace the boot and fill it with grease, like now, else it will put an end to CV joint.

If the axle is out of the wheel bearing assembly, follow up with Mike's note above.
The LCA require extreme force to get the ball-joint at the knuckle to align, hammering is not needed.

The method requires strapping the LCA's together, then ratcheting it to open and align with ball joint.

Use this for reference http://www.volvoxc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/02XCFrontEnd.pdf

[velorider]

Here a summary of todays event.

1. I removed the CV boot for better visibility and I did pull out the axle from the CV joint. Once I could see the bearings I was able to wrangle it back in and I replaced the strap holding the boot with a hose clamp. I did inject some new grease into the bearings before sealing it up. I'll injecting grease ever oil change until I replace the boot.

2. I tried the ratcheting strap but just couldn't get the LCA down far enough, so using a breaker bar inserted into the hole in the LCA, I pushed while a friended ratcheted. Worked really well.

IMPORTANT NOTE! This pictures shows the right control arm installed on the left side of the car. I quickly realized my mistake and reinstalled the correct one. I wanted to note for anyone looking at this for reference in the future.

Was the engine raised from below to install the two long LCA bolts to subframe?

No the engine was not raised. I reused the bolts and added some loctite.

So after spending 3-4 hours on the first side I completed the second one is 1:06. This included inner tie rod ends.

I have ball joints and was planning on installing them also, but I worried about the difficulties of removing the old and installing the new and was so tired from this repair I'll just wait until they wear out in the future and replace then.

Having such a great online community like we have at MVS makes attempting this jobs so much lease stressful. So thanks everyone for your responses. Between my Ranger and my wife's S60, the S60 is 8x the maintenance effort. Through the years I could not have done it without this great forum!

[precopster]

There's a large circlip at the end of the shaft that has traditional holes for a circlip plier. Once removed you can knock the 3 bearing assembly off with a rubber mallet (take note of which side faced up as it is a wedge internally and only goes back on the same way)

Once this is done you can remove the inner CV boot and replace it. In fact you could replace both inner and outer at this stage without removing the outer CV. The Empi CV boot kits actually come with new snap rings for both inner and outer CVs.

[abscate]

Your CA Volvo seems to lack the protective orange coating that our cars come with here in the Northeast...

[oragex]

I have ball joints and was planning on installing them also, but I worried about the difficulties of removing the old and installing the new and was so tired from this repair

I'd suggest looking up on Youtube about a ball joint tool used by Volvo

[precopster]

I've installed ball joints on P2s by using a large galvanised water pipe cut square at the end with burrs filed off and a plastic sleeve inserted to protect the rubbers. If you're using quality ball joints (Febi, Lemforder, Meyle etc) they will go in with not too much effort.

However I used Karlyn on one job and they wouldn't go in squarely on both sides after repeated attempts and they were fitted with a small .5mm gap from the mating surface. Online feedback about Karlyn joints suggests the same results.