Re: CV boot job on a '84 5kS

["Cobram ." <cobram@juno.com>]

 Raffi Tomassian <rtomassian@glaserworks.com> writes:

>boot on his car (FWD).  He has seen my suspension and tells me his is
>nothing like it.  

That helps alot, since you never mention what kind of car you have.

>As far as I understood over the telephone he doesn't
>have A-shaped control arms and described me a mechanism in its place 
>I barely grasped.  He said he managed to take off a bolt that was 
>holding the ball joint (?) in place but couldn't take the piece off.

If it's the lower ball joint, he'll have to pull the bolt all the way out
(buy a new nut and bolt), remove the tie rod end also. Remove the axel
nut, remove the nut for the front torsion bar and maybe loosen the
bracket that holds that.  Then he'll need a LARGE prybar to push the
balljoint out and swing the strut away from the axel.  Remove the bolts
(12 point star bolts) that hold the axel to the case, and it's out.  

I would recommend putting in a rebuilt axel instead of fooling around
with the boot.  I recently replaced the front axel on the 84 5KS, a
nicely rebuilt one cost me $49.00 with warrantee.  Plus, this way he
won't have to worry about it for a while and he can do it along with
changing the ball joint/struts/tie rod/bushings etc. when they go.  Which
is too often in my experience.  The boot was ripped for 2 years before
the CV really started going south on my car.

I'm assuming he knows what year his car is, if it's a 43 body (pre-1984),
then the above probably doesn't apply.  

BCNU,

Cobram@Juno.Com
http://welcome.to/AudiV8Quattro

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