Outer driveshaft gaiter renewal

[iainfm]

Hi,

 

Got a split n/s outer driveshaft boot. Can they be changed in situ, ie by separating the driveshaft from the CV joint? The Haynes says to remove the driveshaft completely, but I'd rather not.

 

Alternative is to get a new nut and fit the new boot over the CV joint - the one I've got is the stretchy type.

 

Cheers,

Iain

[Tech1e]

Stretchy boots are crap, not worth it. I always use genuine boots, the clips actually stay on.

Technically yes the can be done in situ. Remove the three bolts on the bottom ball joint, the driveshaft nut and withdraw the shaft from behind. However the hub then tends to get in the way so it's a lot easier to undo the six bolts on the inner joint and just take the whole shaft out. The driveshaft could well be tight in the hub (originally they are bonded in to stop chatter). This is why we have this tool...

The joint just knocks off the end of the shaft. Make sure it's located correctly when installing though or you will mess up the splines. Obv use a copper mallet to avoid damage.

Driveshaft nut should be a 36mm 12 point nut, tighten to 55Nm plus 45 degrees.

[iainfm]

Cool, thanks!

[TMB]

 The driveshaft could well be tight in the hub (originally they are bonded in to stop chatter).

 

 

Are they bonded on all models, even the 1.4 MPI?

[poiuytre111]

Just a note of caution, I had this exact issue on an older fabia and I chose to take it to a specialist and it ended up costing a lot more than I had planned. The specialist used a tool similar to that shown but the cv joint was so well stuck, he ended up mushrooming the threaded end (think of the end of a well-used cold chisel) so I paid for a new cv joint, new upright and labour to fit them all.

 

If I had been doing this myself I would still have found the cv joint was stuck but might have tried harder to fit a new boot without removing/destroying the cv joint and upright. This would still have meant using a stretchy boot of course. Apparently, if you release the 3 bolts as mentioned to give some room for movement, you can clamp a mole wrench to the drive shaft near the joint and then lever carefully between wrench and joint to split the outer cv from the shaft. It is also easy enough (if time consuming) to drop the inner cv joint to give the shaft more room to move. You could even obtain a 2nd hand upright/outer cv joint which might make economic sense, depending on the car.

[indars]

Are they bonded on all models, even the 1.4 MPI?

 

For mine 1.4L 16V BBZ was bonded, too.