Well that wasn't so bad!

I was feeling a little down about the thought of pulling the half shaft to replace the CV boot. After reading a few posts on F-Chat, I decided to go back out there and give it a go. Would you believe it's actually pretty easy? I spent less time removing the half-shaft than making that silly bracket earlier.

The CV joints are bolted to the flange using allen-head bolts and locking nuts. At first, I was trying to figure out how to get a wrench in there to hold the nut while turning the bolt and keep everything from turning. I did remove a panel under the car so that I could see better. Turns out that the flange actually holds the nut and keeps it from turning. All I needed to do for the inner joint was use a really long extension and a breaker bar. To keep the axle from turning, I stuck a screwdriver in the brake rotor to jam it against the brake caliper. Voila! Six bolts undone without a lot of drama!





The outer joint was easier to access, but it was a bit tricky to sneak a ratchet handle past the suspension arm. After figuring out the position, these bolts were also easy to remove.



Having the half-shaft on the bench, I can see why it was leaking grease. The boot was intact, but the inner clamp was not tight enough to make a good seal. Now comes the messy task of cleaning up this thing, packing it with new grease and installing new boots.