Another poster w/water-cooled VW Beetle has been posting recently, and reminds me of a question I’ve wanted to ask about water cooled VW Beetles and their front axle shafts.
I’ve heard that the CV joints can fall apart inside the boots during suspension system servicing, unless precautions are taken. And when this happens the entire axle must be replaced. Is this true? Is it a VW thing? or can this same problem happen on most CV axle equipped cars? I’ve never had anything like that happen to any of my car’s CV joints during suspension system servicing or CV rebuilds.
Usually you wouldn’t remove the outer boot and then the outer CV joint from the axle shaft for a suspension service, like replacing a strut. Is that what you mean by disconnect the outer CV joint? Or do you mean to remove the outer axle shaft from the hub?
As for the inner CV joint, if you were to replace the hub or a control arm where the axle could extend its length, the inner tripod could easily pull out.
However, I used to believe that as long as the boot is not compromised, the CV joint inside will never wear out. I believed that until without warning, the cage of my outer CV joint on my 4wd Silverado failed and the boot was still intact, no tears or anything and the grease inside was not contaminated. Well it did have 290k on it. So it is clearly not just a VW thing.
Not all outer CV joints can be removed from the axle shaft.
I don’t know why but this tread brought back memories of the Dodge Monaco and Eagle Premier with V6 that had the A/C compressor mounted to the right side valve cover…
Anyway, remember those roll pin inner cv axles?? Fun fun joy joy… lol… you could have it off by one spline and the roll pin would go in about halfway and get stuck… then you had to remove it and start over, got real good using a mirror to make sure all was good and or a paper clip, but the 1st couple threw me off… But on the other hand the compressors and window ribbon regulators were very easy to replace… I think I could go a reg in about 10 minutes start to finish, did a ton of those ribbons back then… lol
Used on Escorts/Lynx cars with manual transmissions.
You couldn’t remove the left side half shaft because the trans axle casting didn’t have a provision that would let you pry the half shaft out of the trans axle.
You first had to remove the right side half shaft which could be pried out, and then place the tool thru the trans axle so left side half shaft could be knocked out with a hammer.
I had a lot of these cars towed to the shop because people didn’t know this. So they thought they could just grab the left side half shaft and give it a yank to remove it.
A lot of inner CV-joints were damaged trying doing this.
You could do the same thing with a long rod that would reach past the spider gear pin, knocked a few out that way… just had to be careful… as the old saying goes, more than one way to skin a cat…
I’ve done a few routine servicing on my Corolla’s outer CV joints over the years. About every 50K miles I remove the axle from the hub, remove the outer CV joint from the axle shaft, clean and re-lube the CV joint, install w/new boot. On the Corolla I’ve always left the inner CV installed in the transmission. Prior VW Rabbit, did the same, except for that car I removed the entire half-shaft, both hub and transmission sides, and did the job on the bench. I must have been lucky, b/c never took special precautions & never had any problem w/inner CV joint.
??? I don’t understand why you’d buy a replacement inner CV joint? It seems like all you’d have to do is remove the inner boot and put all the inner CV joint parts back in place. Or is this easier said than done?
Well not about to remove the factory boot and fool with the bearings. Maybe that’s What a mechanic would do with the proper tool and bands and not tell anyone, but I’ve never had those stay in place for long. A little over $100 for the decision. My cars are/were on the road every day.
I must not be understanding the entire problem. I can see how a diy’er might not want to deal with the fiddly job of reinstalling the inner CV bearings, but the boot? Didn’t you have to remove the boot to replace the inner CV joint with a new one?
Ok, understand now. Thanks for explanation. That’s why the comments I’ve heard about this problem (regarding water cooled VW Beetle) say if the CV joint falls apart when doing a suspension system you have to buy a new axle. Technically a diy’er might not have to do that, but it is probably the most practical method to get car back on the road. And w/some half-shaft configuration, it may not even be possible to replace the inner CV joint without cutting the old one off first. Still unclear if inner CV can be reconfigured back to good by removing the boot and doing the fiddly job of replacing the bearings into position.
