Hi,

I had a little accident today, slid on some gravel and went into a 2ft ditch, luckily the car's all fine but I buckled the front left wheel, I didn't realise at first, but this caused a puncture, and the steering became heavy.

Changed the wheel, but the steering is still heavy. So checked the right side and saw that the rubber power steering thingy (Proper name outer cv boot??) had a hole in and fluid coming out. Both of these rubber things are quite worn.

I think thisis the thing I need? Has anybody got any advice/guidance to changing them?

Thanks

Edited 29 April, 201016 yr by ONW

Yes, that is the thing that you need to fix the boot, but that alone wouldn't give you heavy steering - I would check for other damage, particularly the steering rack and arm - I bent the steering rack on one car once, and the steering was very heavy after that (turning one way, not the other).

Changing the boots is easy enough, undo the bottom ball joint and get that undone, and you may well be able to remove the shaft from the CV joint without removing it from the hub (although I've never done them that way, I always undo the hub nut as well, and remove the CV joint from the hub and then remove the CV from the axle; they need to be knocked off of the shaft, there isn't a circlip you can open up unlike some (such as GM), you need to knock it off with a drift hitting the inner part of the CV joint, so be careful if you're re-using the joint.

All of this will be seriously messy, so wear mechanics' gloves when you do so, or you'll be getting CV grease out of your fingernails for ages. Clean the joint up if needs be (sometimes there's grit and so on in there), then re-grease it. A good way to do this is to put plenty of the grease into the middle of the CV where the shaft will go into - then when you do that it will force it into there and round the rest of the joint too. Then get the new boot on, and do the clips up carefully but very securely.

Oh, and never buy pattern CV boots, get the decent ones like graham does - the pattern one-size-fits-all ones are too stretchy to be any use and deform like hell when at speed.

Ok, thanks. Is it worth buying the complete joint:

http://www.jorily.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=181

Or just the outer boot?

Whilst I'm doing it should I change the other boot too? Thanks.

Depends if the joint is the problem. Problem is you can't just run the hub with the car's weight on it without the CV in place as the bearing relies on it to keep it all aligned - you'll damage it if you run it without the CV in place. But if you have it jacked up, you can remove the CV from the hub, put the lower joint back in and see how heavy the steering is with it jacked up - certainly when I've bent things before it's become immediately apparent (such as the bent rack before).

I've never known a CV be damaged by such an incident - the inner CV has longitudinal play in it, so this generally stops them being put under strain when a bump occurs (as when the suspension goes up and down, obviously). But that doesn't mean to say it's not the problem. You'll know when you get it out to change the boot - it should move fairly easily, and I've known them be tight, but not from a knock.

It's worth checking the other boot - it's probably the same age as the one that's just gone...

Ok, thanks. I think it was broken a while before the incident, as the one which is broken is on the other side to which I went in the ditch. Both look pretty worn.

What should I look for if the joint is broken?

Thanks again.

Usually worn joints will click - they do this particularly at full lock and in reverse as the load is obviously opposite when in reverse.

If the boot has been broken for a while it'd be best to give the joint a good clean out before replacing the boot as grit and water may have got in there.

Didn't realise this was the opposite one to the ditch incident, so for the heavy steering you should probably be looking elsewhere. But the boot is important - aside from being an MOT failure, they are there for a good reason!

Agreed; that CV boot (isn't it an inner anyway?) needs changing, but the heavy steering is most likely something else.

The most likely causes of heavy steering are PAS failure (if applicable), loss of tyre pressure, or a bent suspension arm causing a geometry change.

What size is the hub nut? My socket set hasn't got one large enough, so I'll need to buy just the single size!

30mm.

I think I might get a mechanic to do it, hopefully just be charged labour and I'll give the parts. By the time I've bought the breakers bar etc. Thanks for your help

Never get someone else to do something you can do yourself.....

True, I've managed to find an old breakers bar, and undone the hub nut, I managed to snap a ratchet and an extender piece.

Do I have to take off the bottom ball joint to remove the CV?

Yeah, there's not enough movement otherwise (and you'll need to move the steering to make it easy, turn it so the steering arm is outwards as much as possible and it should be easy enough). Just the single nut/bolt on the lower joint will do it, although sometimes the bolt is rusted in place (not as often as the top one for the shock, though).

Yeah, there's not enough movement otherwise (and you'll need to move the steering to make it easy, turn it so the steering arm is outwards as much as possible and it should be easy enough). Just the single nut/bolt on the lower joint will do it, although sometimes the bolt is rusted in place (not as often as the top one for the shock, though).

NO. If the bottom ball joint is seized-as it will be- you can take off the bottom suspension arm. that is easier.

BTW these jobs are OK is they go well. There are issues to deal with as the joint needs knocking off theshaft and then knocking back on. Be careful I bent a shaft doing thuis by gripping in a vice and trapping it against the bench.

But not a difficult job. Hub nut is 255 foot pounds.

I've only had 1 seized bottom joint out of all the Fels I've broken or owned (which is currently 10), so I guess I've been lucky then....

The bolt came out easily, put a screwdriver through and hammered it out. Is the bottom joint more likely to come out if I put the car on axle stands? Where's the best place to put them on a felicia?

You need to put the car on stands, 'cos you don't want it to fall down!

I always put the stands under the U-shaped cup that supports the rear wishbone mounting to the body - that way it's super-secure and steady, no damage is done to the car's shell or rustproofing, and it puts no load onto the wishbone so you can get it out of the bottom joint.

I've found it fairly straightforward to get the wishbone out by pushing it downwards which wiggling the hub - I put a lever bar into the hole in the wishbone so you can push down on it, and then usually the bottom joint will come out fairly easily; sometimes a tap with a hammer is needed on the bottom hub just to crack it free, but it's much easier than trying to do it with ball joint splitters, plus this way doesn't screw up the rubber dust cap on the joint (and if that's split, the balljoint will die pretty quickly).

Edited 2 May, 201016 yr by djaychela

Easier than I expected, only took me an hour to take everything off. There was still plenty of grease in the CV joint, so I think I was quite lucky to spot the tear in the boot quickly. Everything's off now, just waiting for the post next week! It looks like the other side is going to need replacing soon too, I'm gonna be hating axle grease for a long time now!

Never change a boot until it actually goes though; life guarantees that if you get boots in packs ot 2 (like for steering rack boots) the one you needed to change will rip and the other one would have gone on until the car rusts out from around it!

Edited 10 May, 201016 yr by KenONeill

True, I'm going to leave it. All done now, I used cable ties instead of those metal clips, as I just couldn't get them tight enough. I've read around, and quite a few people use cable ties, are they ok to use?

As long as you have them tight enough, they are fine.