5ktq: Getting outer CV joint off, epilogue

[stevanov@orion.crd.ge.com (Ljubisa D. Stevanovic)]

You may remember that after struggling and failing to remove
outer CV joint from halfshaft, last Mon. I sent a message asking 
for advice on how to get the joint off. I would like to thank 
everybody who responded, it helped me great deal! The response was 
rather unanimous: "Use a bigger hammer". As always, the Net Wisdom 
came through and my car has a brand new set of boots on the front :) 

In my opinion, the topic of removing CV joint is not well documented 
in the Bentley, even misleading (following their instructions I wasted 
an entire day tapping lightly on the joint's hub with a plastic 
hammers of different shape and size), so I'll summarize what worked
for me and what I consider to be better approach. As always, YMMV.

It really takes a considerable amount of force to get the CV joint
sliding off of the halfshaft and the best place to exert that force
is at the hub (innermost part of the joint with a splined hole where 
the shaft is inserted). Also, try to apply force evenly all around 
the hub to prevent it from binding (thanks Don). And this is where
you need to depart from Bentley, because with the circlip pliers in 
there you can't easily hit the hub directly with a hammer at more than 
two places on the hub. Try it and you'll see what I'm talking about. 
What you need is a pointed chisel made of soft iron that you can nicely 
wedge against the hub in the axial direction. It turns out that a
local hardware/lumber store (OK, I didn't say this was going to be a
hi-tech solution) sells these log-splitter irons called "Log Grenade" 
that are made of cast (soft) iron. They weigh 2-3 lbs and are pyramid 
shaped. Just what you need! With one of these, a 3lb hammer and a 
halfshaft tightened in a bench wise, it took about 10 pretty hard 
blows to get the joint moving, and another 20-30 to get it off.
As expected, there was no rust on the splines and thank God no signs 
of loctite. As pointed out earlier, you definitely don't want any
loctite on the halfshaft splines that insert into outer or inner
joint hub. The loctite should be applied only to the outer joint 
splined area that inserts into wheel bearing (see pictures in Bentley).

Once I got the joint off, the rest was very straightforward. 
It took me about 1 hour to get both outer joints removed, cleaned,
lubricated and installed back with new boots. To reassemble,
I put the joint in the wise and hammered the shaft in by hitting
on it's other end until the circlip dropped in it's grove. 

I also ended up replacing both inner boots as well; one had a
small stone cut and it was losing grease, while the other was
perfectly OK, but I figured it was easier to replace it now when
I had everything apart. 

Total time for both inner boot replacements about 1 hour. It took 
me another 3 hours to put everything back together and the car is 
back on the road. 

Again, thanks to all who responded to my original message,
Ljubisa Stevanovic (stevanov@crd.ge.com)
'88 5ktq