Questions and Answers
Honda Civic Time To Reboot
Q. I have a 1995 Honda Civic, 1.5L engine, manual trans with 130,000 miles. Yesterday one of my CV boots let go and splattered its grease all over the under side of the fender.
Is there any real secret to replacing the boots or is it pretty straight forward? I'm wondering if I should tackle the problem or take it to the shop. Any advice you could give me would be helpful.
Scott
A. Well Scott, for me it's a pretty straightforward job, but then I've done millions of them. Well, maybe not millions, but thousands. Well, maybe not thousands, but at least a hundred.
What I would do is go to the library and look up the procedure in the service manual. If you feel it's something you can do, then go for it. Basically what it entails is this; there is a big, and I mean big, nut and a cotter pin on the end of the shaft that has to come off. Then you need to unbolt the lower ball joint from the lower control arm. Disconnect the outer tie-rod end. Once that's done there are three nuts on top of the strut tower that need to come off and then you can take the whole strut assembly out.
Now comes the fun part. You have to pop the drive shaft out of the transmission. What you need to do is get a BIG screwdriver or pry bar and get between the inner joint housing and transmission and pop that baby out. There is a "C" clip on the end of the shaft that holds it in. Once that pops out, you can now work on the CV joints. Have plenty of rags handy because this is a really messy job. You might want to get a pair of latex examination gloves as well. Undo the clips on the boots and either slide them back or cut them off. Once the boots are off, you're ready to take the joint off. Some are a two piece joint and some are single piece. With the two piece joint, the outer housing will come off leaving the roller assembly on the shaft. There will be a snap ring holding the roller assembly on. Remove the snap ring and slide the rollers off. Be sure to note which direction the rollers are on so you can replace them the same way. With a one piece joint, you have to bang the joint off with a 2x4 and a hammer.
Now you can replace the boots. I would highly recommend replacing both the inner and outer boots at the same time. Two reasons, if one broke, the other is not far behind, second, this is too messy of a job to do twice. When you install the new boots, note which is the inner and which is the outer, there is a difference. If you bought a kit, there should be two tubes of grease in it. Pack the joint still on the shaft with one tube of grease. Work it in there good and don't skimp on it. Use the whole tube. Then slide the boot on the shaft and clamp it down with the new clamps. On the other end, slide the boot on and clamp it around the shaft. On the two piece joint, re-install the roller assembly and use the new snap ring that comes with the kit. Pack the joint housing with the other tube of grease and slide it back on. In the one piece joint, align the splines in the joint with the splines on the shaft, get it as straight as you possibly can and, with a piece of wood on the end of the joint, tap it back on. Make sure the "C" clip locks into place.
Squeeze in any left over grease inside the boot. Now clamp the large end of the boot down and you're done with the really messy part. At this point I have gone through a couple of pairs of gloves and washed my hands about 20 times. The only tricky part in putting it all back together is snapping it back into the transmission. Put the new "C" clip on the end of the shaft and fit it into the transmission. You'll have to feel when the splines are aligned. The shaft has to be as straight as possible. With the shaft lined up, tap it into the transmission. If you have it lined up right, it may just pop in. If not, tap on the end of the shaft with your 2x4 and hammer. You'll feel it pop into place when it's all the way in and the "C" clip engages.
Now everything is a matter of reversing the removal procedure. When you install the nut on the end of the shaft, make sure you use a new cotter pin.This is about a three hour job, so if you decide to tackle it, allow enough time to do it without rushing.
