I just did a thorough archives read on half shaft replacement. Most posts say to replace the half shaft when a torn boot is found.

 

In my case, I have an inside torn boot on front driver's side. Not much grease is thrown out, and there are no strange noises to indicate that the half shaft joint is damaged. So, would my car be a good candidate to just have the inside boot replaced? According to reading the archives, there is not much labor to pull the inside half shaft loose to replace the boot. Any advise?

You're going to have to do the same amount of work to replace the boot....and in most cases more work to replace the boot than just swapping axles.

 

The only problem with just replacing the boot is you don't know how long it's been damaged/torn. So you don't know how long dirt and other grime have gotten in there. If it's not leaking much grease, that probably means it's dry, which is also not good. Just because it's not making noise doesn't make the joint good.

 

If it were me, I'd just replace the axle. I just got done doing this TWICE on the Impreza because I got some POS axles from the local autoparts store that caused vibration and were leaking grease....already.

http://www.mnsubaru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32974

 

Chux wrote a nice how-to for replacing your boots. Sounds like yours is a good canidate; you cought it early. Besides DOJs tend to stay up out of the muck and don't have the range of motion a CV does.

 

While I'm a proponent of just replacing the axle I think you could go either way here.

why is it that these "auto parts stores" sell these parts that are obviously substandard and as 777 says POS. AS SUBARU LOVERS AND MECHANICS WE SHOULD RISE UP AND:mad:.................oh never mind I'm ranting, but we all feel the same about doing work or having it done then down the road have it done all over again:banana::horse:...........G

Do they still make split boots?

 

I installed several of these with good luck years ago, even the outers seemed to hold up fairly well with careful install technique.

 

Yes, you can't clean it as well, but if you're just going to shove a new axle in there, you may as well get as much use out of the old one as you can.

 

 

 

Dave

To replace the inner boot, the axle doesn't have to come out of the hub. It's also in the archives.

Thanks for all the advise. I appreciate it. Nice to see the step by step pixs of how to reboot a half shaft. That was very well ilustrated. After weighing options, my trusted garage will replace for $139 labor, $65 for a reman axel. Yea, I know it is a roll of the dice on using a reman half shaft, but so far have had good luck with reman parts from O'Reilly Auto Parts here in the midwest. My garage lets me bring in my own parts for installation.