Hayaku,

My question is can we just disconnected the shaft off the ball joint where the C clip at, and leave the ball joint still connects at the hub as it. Is it possible?

Yes that my question also, if you can access the "C" clip and have the room to pull the shaft out, can that be done?

I was gonna do control arms and sway bar links today and decided to wait and to the boots along with the support arm ball joint, that is really spent. My boots are actually cracking now that I have taken a good look. Only the left side is noticable but I’ll do both. My wife tends to drill the curb about 50% of the time aiming for the driveway. To bad too, I got the parts but have another car to do today so I will do it next weekend. I am going to TRY a different way, I will remove the support arm and control arm and see if I can access the "C" clip without removing the axle shaft from the hub, if that is possible we are talking about a significant reduction in the job time and difficulty.

i would not recommend that. the cv joint itself is very wobbly. you have to drive it back onto the shaft. do you want to man handle about 40 lbs of awkward metal, try to align it, then hammer the 40lb assembly back onto the shaft so that the c clip is compressed correctly? that's going to be hell of a fun time...

it was difficult enough to drive the wobbly cv joint back on the shaft by itself last night. and there was significant hammering to be done. and you you can't drive it back onto the shaft till you have it aligned correctly so that the c clip doesn't get crushed if its sticking out of the groove too much...

also, imo, there is not enough room to get to the cv joint to hammer it off the shaft (over the compressed c clip) with the swivel bearing and dust shield still in the way.

forgot to add:

for those that have been driving with their cv boots torn, you may have dirt and other debris in the grease in the cv joint. thats a sure way to destroy the cv joint. you have to be very clean in this operation of assembling it all back together. the only way to get most of the grease out is to remove cv joint so you can get to the grease inside of it.

I started my CV boot replacement yesterday. Front outter driver side, just like everyone else. Thanks all for tips and info. Regarding The Cleaner suggestion about replacing the boot without removing the half shaft for the hub, it is do-able but it cannot be done easily for a single person or working with limited space under the car, but I did install the stud shaft on the hub first before putting the CV joint back on the half shaft. It worked out good for me. This way I was able to hammer the the stud shaft to the hub while the hub was on the ground. A few other things for people who want to diy CV boot, make sure you take off the single screw that hold the rotor to the hub. Try to avoid using ball joint separation folk, they will rip the boot and I cannot find replacement for the boot without buying the hold ball joint or control arm. Hayaku was right about BFH. It will make the job a lot easier. Questions for all, does anyone sell just the ball joint boot? I torn 2 of them while separating the ball joint. If not any suggestions for repairing the torn boot? What is the right way to tighten the boot clamp? Thanks

Welcome to X5World!

i didn't have the special bmw tools to separate the ball joints and i didn't want to damage them, so i just removed the whole control arm from the chassis as well. the tension strut was still stuck on its ball joint which was bolted to the swivel bearing. according to TIS, when you have that stuck, they have a special tool (basically a slide hammer with a special attachment) to remove the tension strut from the ball joint but it damages the ball joint in the process and you have to replace it.

from these pics, those little ball joints (and boots) are part of the control arms. looks like the only way to repair that is to replace them:

Part 5 from the steering Tie Rod
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/p/c/133.png

Part 10 from the wishbone (rear control arm)
Part 15 (is just the ball joint) from the tension strut (front control arm)
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/f/b/193.png

Congrats man!
 

Hayaku, looks like you beat me to it! I was gonna re-attempt the project Friday morning after I found some jack stands out N pops shed but I left my 12p collar socket back home (dammit). Anyhow I'm back home now with all the tools I need for the job. I already have quite a few pics of the project which I'll post here for everyone to enjoy for future cv boot DIY's. As well I'll follow your steps as you already were successful on your boot replacement. Good job man:thumbup:

BTW, you cheated!

couple questions:

swivel bearing = wheel bearing?

how much play do you have on you CV joint/drive shafts? mine are noisy.

swivel bearing is that big metal hub that everything mounts onto (control arms, brakes, etc). The wheel bearings are packed inside the swivel bearing.

Part #4 is what the TIS calls the swivel bearing:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/i/r/188.png

I have no play in my cv joint to drive shaft. Its an extremely tight fit and i had to hammer the joint stub back onto the shaft quite a bit. Once everything was back on and the boot reinstalled with grease, i wobbled it around alot and there was no noise or play at all between the 2 parts.

HTH

Swivel bearing = steering knuckle, like Gator = boot. strange terms sometimes.

C-clip where U at?
 

Hayaku,

I've come to a brick wall as I can't seem to access the C-clip to release the cv joint. How exactly did you get yours off? Thx in advance!

C-clip where U at?
http://album1.snapandshare.com/8701/45976/812996.jpg http://album1.snapandshare.com/8701/45976/812997.jpg