DIY: 1998 V70 Axle CV Rubber Boots Tips/Tricks

[erikv11]

How are you opening the clip? The key is to get it open just the right amount, then the CV should move right off.

You don't need to hit several star points at once, just one of them has always worked for me. The air hammer is a good idea it should make it a lot easier, once the clip is opened up properly.

I do wonder if the aftermarket axle is the issue, sorry I can't be of much help.

[sleddriver]

I'd read another post where someone was having the same issue I thought I was: C-clip was cocked in crooked. He said something about horiz. vs vertical, so I set it up again horizontally with the long tail supported horiz. using a c-clamp on my bench. I'm using snap-ring pliers, though they're not suited to this type of clip. I also tried a screwdriver but didn't have one w-i-d-e enough to completely open the ring to its max.

I used the widest driver I had and leaned into it hard with the air hammer and saw it move! Amazed....I went at it again...and again...and again. It was firmly seated until the very end...there was none of this "one knock and it's off". We don't have rust and salt down here either! Royal PITA.

I wiped out what grease was left inside and wanted to disassemble it but wasn't able to rotate the inner cage far enough over to release the balls. So I went as far as I could using the handle of a screwdriver and wiped out as much old grease as possible, then sprayed it thoroughly with throttle body cleaner. Wiped it out some more until 95% was gone. There was no rust, nor dirt inside. No galling either. But most of the grease was gone too. Squeezed in some new moly-grease and packed it in with a deep socket with a piece of tape over the 3/8" shaft end. This caused the grease to evenly come up and around each ball. I evenly spread it over the top then figured I'd had enough for one day!

Thank God for the little air hammer I had completely forgotten about! Haven't used it in 15yrs? It would have come in handy on some other projects.

Thanks for your reply!

[dosbricks]

The exposed ends of the OE clip are not straight, but they curve up as they emerge from the groove, so if a screw driver gets below the curve, as it naturally does, it pulls the opposite side of the clip into the groove. As I postulated above, getting the clip spread and centered at the same time seems to be a key to getting it to release from the groove. That is a combination which seems as much a matter of luck as it does finesse and effort.

Anyway, congratulations on battling it through to fruition!

[erikv11]

... congratulations on battling it through to fruition!

Hear, hear!

[sleddriver]

I like your idea there dosbricks! I still have the drivers side to do, but I'm giving myself a break to do a few other things first. Where did you find your snap ring pliers? I'll be looking for something similar. Both my screwdriver & SR pliers continuously slipped down the curved part of the ring to meet the axle, causing the ring to drop in to the slot again. PITA. There is room for a ring with holes on each tip. Would have made life easier for us DIY'ers. C'est la vie....

I also had to really pound the outer joint back into place. It was very tight. I switched to the air hammer/chisel again and put the point tip into the center divot on the axle end. Unfortunately, I was only able to use the air tool about 40sec before my hot-dog-compressor ran out of air. Then I'd have to wait for it to refill. It took about 10 cycles of this, really leaning into it as well. This also caused bits of grease to come out, making a mess! No doubt these were all put together with much bigger air tools than I have. Compare this to removing the axle from the hub...piece of cake! That's also a spline drive.

The other side will go faster now that I've done one and will be using a better SR pliers and dealing with a MUCH shorter axle.

One more thing....I used the Rein boot kit from Autohausaz. No more GKN on their site unfortunately. I followed the earlier links and noticed others displayed Rein for GKN as well.

Thanks for the congratulations guys! Cheers and champagne!

[dosbricks]

I like your idea there dosbricks! I still have the drivers side to do, but I'm giving myself a break to do a few other things first. Where did you find your snap ring pliers? I'll be looking for something similar. Both my screwdriver & SR pliers continuously slipped down the curved part of the ring to meet the axle, causing the ring to drop in to the slot again. PITA. There is room for a ring with holes on each tip. Would have made life easier for us DIY'ers. C'est la vie....

I also had to really pound the outer joint back into place. It was very tight. I switched to the air hammer/chisel again and put the point tip into the center divot on the axle end. Unfortunately, I was only able to use the air tool about 40sec before my hot-dog-compressor ran out of air. Then I'd have to wait for it to refill. It took about 10 cycles of this, really leaning into it as well. This also caused bits of grease to come out, making a mess! No doubt these were all put together with much bigger air tools than I have....

sleddriver,
The snap ring plier is K-D brand purchased at an auto parts store--which one I can't recall because I've had them for so many years. They came with a selection of inserts--some straight and some with a bend and with various size tips. I picked a pair of inserts I felt I was unlikely to ever use and ground off the tip and used a tri-cornered file to notch them for using to spread the clips on the transmission cooler lines--for which they work great. I was too lazy to make a pair of inserts custom ground to exactly fit this ornery axle snap ring, but before doing another one, I would do so. It would only take a bit of work with the edge of a small flat file.

One thing I observed as I was messing with this clip was that it helps to get the plier fulcrum pin right down against the axle. This helps to better control the tips and thereby have some degree of control of how the clip is centering up around the axle when it's spread open. I trained my helper to look after that while I smacked the joint.

Judging by the way you had to use extreme hammering to get the CV spline off and then back on the axle, it appears you had a really tight one there. This joint appears to have a very slight taper. It doesn't just slide off once the clip is free, but your's seemed to be exceptionally tight. Hopefully the other side will not take as much force to remove. As you say, the experience of this side will serve you well when you start on the other axle.

dos

[sleddriver]

Update: I've now completed the drivers side. Replaced both boots. Easy compared to the pass. side...except for busting the axle nut loose! I decided to grind some small vertical flats into the opposite ends of my replaceable tip snap-ring pliers as the hex-shank wasn't suited for the job.

I was quickly stopped by the drivers side axle nut. Couldn't budge it with a 1/2" breaker bar + 5' of steel pipe. I had a 1/2" air impact wrench but it was too underpowered with my little hot-dog nail gun compressor. A neighbor with a BIG compressor was gone....so I drove to my indy's shop where he busted it loose in two seconds! I also found a set of horseshoe, retaining ring pliers that appeared much more suited to the task at Sears for about $13 + made in USA. Turns out, I didn't really need them!

Axle removal was straightforward. CN90's guide was very useful. Thanks for that! Turns out the outer joint was easily removed as it wasn't fully seated into the retaining ring. It was quickly removed with the air chisel. The joint was very stiff and I wasn't at all able to rotate it freely, much less remove the balls for a thorough cleaning. So I removed as much as possible and sprayed it with cleaner to dissolve the old grease.

From some video's I'd watched, I was expecting the inner joint to come apart. It doesn't. The ends of the case are peened over to prevent it. So I cleaned, regreased and rebooted. Piece-of-cake! This was the one I was looking for! Whole thing went back into place with no issues nor worries. I made sure to fully seat the outer joint until the retaining ring was loose in the groove. The drivers side was stamped "Lobro" on both ends. I didn't notice this on the pass. side. Also the axle nut dia. were different.

I used some degreaser to clean the dried grease out of the wheel well and a hot glue gun to tack back in place the loose mud-flap until I can get a screw in there. The nylon push-keepers have long since broken. I also used hot glue to tack the plastic inner fender liner to the side of the transmission to keep it from making noise. I found a GREAT glue gun last year....Surebonder HE-750. 80W heater, comfortable grip, only $20 @ Amazon. Very pleased to have this greasy job over with as it's now begun to rain! Plus, silence-is-golden with the new pass. side spring seat in place.

[erikv11]

The push-in nylon fasteners work great on the fender liners and mudflaps, this is what I use:

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... hp?t=67632


EDIT: image added

[dosbricks]

sleddriver,
Well, now that our cars have survived their first DIY axle overhaul, we will be pros next time.

[mecheng]

I also couldn't get the nut off using a breaker bar and I consider myself strong (don't we all). I stopped short of stepping on the breaker bar. 10 seconds with my electric impact gun and it came off no problem. When they are on sale, well worth it. Just don't use them to tighten bolts.