1st June 2008I bought some second hand drive shafts with the intention of repairing them. I decided that i would need to read up on the dismantling procedure : http://www.bajaclub.co.uk/PDF_Documents/CV%20Joint%20Maintainance.pdf and found some useful advice that was very useful for removing the CV joints checking for problems and refitting the joints to the shaft.
I had saved all the half moon washers and special bolts from the old drive shafts and cleaned them up ready for the new installation. I decided that I would not commission fitting new parts for old were the parts where the main Assembly parts that wear or take a lot of abuse. Therefore I decided to buy four new Lobro CV joint kits from my retailer GSF.
The kits came with the special LM grease the new CV joint and a new rubber cover washers and bolts. (Note the kit does not include the half moon washers.)
Assembly of the joints onto the drive shafts is a very messy one and to be honest should not be done in your house and preferably be done on an outside table with plenty of newspaper surrounding the area. The LM grease comes in four sachets 1 for each of the CV joints. The joints must be heavily greased with this LM grease otherwise it will allow them to fail . The LM grease can be pushed into the CV joints from each side by your fingers. The CV joint can then be turned over and the grease pressed in from the other side. Don't stop until you can get no more in. The next job is to push the CV joint cap onto the Drive shaft Start with one at a time assembling 1 joint first. Once you have the CV cover fitted the next item to go on is the concave washer. There has been a lot of questions about this washer on VZI to many to count and I am getting RSI typing the same answers . The washer must go in so the concave side faces the joint that you are building. Once you have the washer on the CV joint it can be placed onto the drive shaft. Make sure the groove in the joint faces the boot. If your lucky the joint will slide on if your unlucky as I was you need to use a piece of wood and a hammer to knock it on. Be careful to remove the wood debris from the joint once its driven home. There are now three more items left in the kit. One i a washer that is supposed to go on next the second a circlip that locks the whole joint on and the theirs the screws. The washer will give you a lot of hassle if you use it. I have read a lot of articles where it is presumed safe to omit it Personally I left it out but I think its up to the person fitting the joint to make this decision. The circlip can be prized over the end of the drive shaft I then used a suitable size socket to drive the circlip into its groove. I tried several times to get the circlip on with the washer but the washer took up to much space and would not fit securely into its groove.
With the first joint made up I found some small plastic bags and covered it to keep the grease contained the last thing was to repeat the process for the other three joints.
Once I had the drive shafts made up it is a simple job to place them into the car. One important thing though is to ensure that the bolt holes line up, This can be achieved by starting one of the threads in its thread. The rest of the bolts can then be put round the perimeter remembering to use the half moon washers. The bolts have a head which is a 8mm 12 point socket. It is important to use the correct tool to tighten up these as they need to be tightened to 25 ft lbs The 8mm 12 point drive socket can be purchased from GSF.
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