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Well just thought I would share a discovery when doing some mainenance on the CV joint boots:
This 95 Aero 5 speed has 164k. Previous owner had the manual transmission 'rebuilt' at around 142k. I have been fixing things on it the past few months. Noticed the drivers side CV joint boot was torn. No noise or vibration that I had noticed. Hopefully caught this problem before it did any damage, I think.
Removed the entire axle shaft from the car, and while holding it in a vise, removed the CV joint. Then swapped out the old inner boot because I wanted to replace both inner and outer boots. Cleaned, greased, reassembled.
Before installing in the car, as I was cleaning the inner driver cup, I noticed a lot of wobble on the short shaft that the cup is mounted to. I mean a lot. Didn't want to put axle back in with this driver/shaft in such bad shape. Never seen this before on the other cars.
Fortunately, I had a spare manual transmission on hand to use the drivers side cup/inner driver from that unit.
First, I removed the drivers side front strut assembly to provide more working room. Next, I drained out about 3 qts of oil. Oil looked dark and cloudy. Not very good, I think. Using a 1/2" drive hand-held impact driver and a big rubber mallet behind an extension and a T-45 Torx bit, I was able to get all 5 mounting flange bolts loose. I was then able to pry, pull, and tug the old driver out. Upon examination, there is a ball bearing in there, holding bearing cage on shaft,held in place with a circlip. The cage for the bearing was in pieces, which allowed the bearings to roll around in a non-equidistant pattern. Apparently this was the source of the wobble.
The straight-cut grooves on the inner part of this short shaft where it mates with a gear in the transmission looked okay.
I reinstalled the spare driver/short shaft assembly, reusing the same three spacers that were on the original. Refilled with about 2.5 qts of Redline MT90 until oil came out the 'full' hole on side of transaxle case. It is a 75W-90 synthetic GL-4 gear oil, recommended by Simon S. on this board. reassembled the CV joint/axle assembly, and reinstalled strut assy.
Transmission shifts easier and faster with this fluid change.
Anyone every had this bearing fail? If I can find a replacement bearing I would probably replace the bad one and reuse the outer driver assembly.
posted by 74.64.8...
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