Well, I am currentlychanging brakes and moved to the drivers side front and noticed grease everywhere. I looked at the boot and see a huge slash. There's grease everywhere. I can't believe how frustrating this damn thing is.

I have no idea how long it's been ripped for.

What has to be replaced? Does the entire axle need replacing?

thanks for your help

 

you can take the axle out and inspect it if there is still grease on the ***** then you can just repack it with a new boot. if you see a little grease replace the outer joint. honda will charge an arm and a leg to either fix it or replace the outer joint. find a local shop that will do it and give you a life time warranty. this will not be your first time!!

 

I would examine it to see how much debris is in the grease; rocks, etc. This is what is going to cause damage. If it doesn't seem like anything significant, then I wouldn't worry. If there are large rocks, or a lot of debris really packed into there, yeah, replace the outer joint.

Either way, I would definitely remove every bit of grease before repacking it. Regardless of what you can/can't see, there is debris in there. Even sand will cause damage over time.

If there is a question about replacing the joint or not, I would say to do the boot & grease first because it'll likely be like 1/8th the price. Worst case, you would just have to do it again and it would be insignificant next to the price of the cv/joint.

 

Alright, I guess that's what I expected. My car has to be on the road in 3 days so we'll what the hell happens.

thanks

 

I was in the exact same scenario as you a week ago. Not knowing how long the tear had been open, although it looked fresh because the grease didn't look too old, I just decided to replace the whole axle to avoid any problems down the line. Cost me $130 for a reman w/labor.

But couldn't avoid having more problems. Check out my other post here in tech. Not sure if its caused by the new axle but I didn't have this problem before it.

 

I don't think that I have time to take care of the axle, since it has to be driven Sunday night. I'm just going to finish installing my brakes and take it somewhere to be replaced (I know: *****!).

Anyway, does anyone have any objections if I drive 10 miles to the shop? As long as only the boot is damaged, there is little chance that I'll break an axle on the way. Maybe I'll do a temporary seal with some duct tape

 

nothins gonna happen if you drive it 10 miles to the shop. I drove from salt lake to vegas(~400 miles), and noticed in vegas that it was torn I drove it all the way home, and for a couple months afterwards, with no problems whatsoever..

Oh yeah, i did that temp. seal with the ducttape as well, but I think it stopped working after the first big turn i made


[Modified by EightOhOne, 9:14 PM 3/21/2002]

 

Just buy a whole new axle from a junkyard, there relatively inexpensive.