Drive shafts in general ??.

[wotwot]

Some may be aware that my son and I both have dispatch vans,mine was the white smoke not steam one which is now running great.
My sons van I posted about some time ago with regard to the injector pump which with the help of donated parts by JIM we rebuilt and got running again, only to be shot down in flames when the front pulley smashed into bits and broke the camshaft in 3 pieces whilst over taking another van,(put another engine in)
My sons van has without warning broken the outer cv joint .
£20 later a new cv joint dropped through the letterbox complete with rubber boot, boot clips,tube of grease and circlip type thingy.
I am now 50 and have been tinkering with vehicles for a long time and quite confident and sometimes clever when it comes to repairs.
But for the love of god why have I only just found out cv boots do not need to be s t r e t c h e d to the max to go over the cv joint .
Dismember the driveshaft from the hub make up a suitable drift and tap the outer cv joint off the shaft slide new boot on grease and put back together simples.
His was apart and being put back together within half an hour. Altough the outer cv we got was for the abs model and the driveshaft nut is not deep enough to have the spring clip hold it in place so we used the old one.
Is this the same with all driveshafts or are we lucky that these driveshaft cv joints can be easily replaced, I must be mad the hours I have spent changing cv boots in the past even tearing new boots cos I just stretched them to far,lost god knows how many layers of skin from my knuckles, Am I really that THICK that I could'nt work it out in the 34 years i've being tinkering.
And cos I have a split cv boot on mine It wont take long !!!!!.
No not if the bloody 36mm nut does actually come undone,mine did'nt and broke my bestist breaker bar f##k.
Drilled 6 holes in the nut to get some heat into it and broke my bar .
I even had a 6 foot scaffold tube on it once to undo the driveshaft nut on a montego now its dead,well the knuckle anyway.
So the moral is check to see if the cv joint can be knocked of the shaft before you go stretching the crap out of the rubber boot.
Sorrymore of a rant really I miss my bar .

[the_weaver]

You're lucky having those CV joints that can be knocked off and replaced. My ZX has got outer CV joints which are part of the driveshaft. To replace the outer gaiter, you have to remove the driveshaft, and then break open the inner gaiter. The inner gaiter is rubber but is attached to a metal can. You have to prise open the edge of the metal can, take it off, and split the inner joint. Then you can do the outer joint. After doing the outer joint, you then have to fit a new gaiter and metal can to the inner joint. The edge of the metal can has to be hammered over the edge of driveshaft. The edge to be hammered over is only about 1mm wide. That's the only thing that holds the inner gaiter together. You've got one chance to do it, and it has to be airtight. It's a horrible over-complicated job. Very easy to get wrong.

With regard to hub nuts. I've found that a two foot, 3/4 inch square drive breaker bar is better than a three foot, 1/2 inch drive breaker bar. 1/2 inch drive breaker bars bend under heavy load, and you lose a lot of your force/effort in bending the bar. 3/4 inch drive breaker bars don't bend, and all your effort goes into undoing the nut.

I once had a hub nut that was locked into place by hardened brake dust. It undid with a bang, and a big cloud of black brake dust. If I ever get one that bad again, I'll try spraying brake cleaner into the threads.

Paul

[citronut]

usualy if it aint the tin can type Paul talks about on the inner the CV joint will knock off,

you will almost certainly find the reason the old joint broke up, was someone had knocked it off the shaft and hit the high tensile cage which holds the ball bearings in place, this can/will fracture the cage then in time the joint will break up,

knuckle bars break if you bounce on them and dont use continuous steady presure, even with a 3 to 4 foot scafold tube on them,

most garages use a gaitor which is intended to be streached on over the CV joint these days,

it is done with either a large plastic cone or an air hydraulic jawed tool,

thats all well and good as long as the old gaitor was not split wide open, as this allows grit and crap into the CV joint,

in which case you should remove/strip right down and clean the CV joint before fitting a new gaitor,


regards malcolm

[wotwot]

Do the hub nuts have a torque setting or do they rely on them being tightened and having the clip or split pin fitted.
I cant use the new nut my son got with his cv joint as it is to small and no built in back washer, so will have to wait till monday and hope the citroen dealers have the nut in stock.

[the_weaver]

Another tip for undoing difficult hub nuts, is to place a chock under the front wheel, so that as you undo the nut, you're pushing the wheel down onto the chock. A proper solid chock with a 45 degree angle is best. As you push down on the breaker bar, the front tyre pushes down on the chock, and the base of the chock presses down on the ground. The use of the chock will make it much easier to undo the hub hut because the springiness in the system is removed. With no chock, as you try to undo the nut, a lot of the force you're exerting is being lost. With no chock, you put force on the nut, but some of that force goes into compressing the front suspension, and more force is lost in the rear suspension (expanding the spring probably). As the rear handbrake is the only thing that stops the car from moving forward, you're losing your effort by fighting two sets of suspension springs. With the chock in place, your force goes down to the ground more directly, and you'll find that the nut is easier to undo, because the system feels much less springy.

[citronut]

my AUTODATA disc says 320Nm = 235.99 lb/ft this is for a 1.9TD,

i find my two foot knuckle bar is just the right tool for the job, bring the nut round as tight as you can, then check the R clip locking cap fits with two oposite holes in line with the slots in the cap,


regards malcolm