Greasing CV joints

[jazzdude]

Will be putting my driveshafts back on following a suspension and chassis refurb, and would like to know what to do about grease.

I bagged the ends of the driveshaft as soon as I took them off, but I would say there was a tablespoon of grease in the diff and hub cups that I cleaned off.

I don't really want to take the joints to pieces to start from scratch so how much grease do I put back on. I read somewhere that too much is also a bad thing.

After loctite, how do you tighten the Allen studs? Even in gear the diff turns and with no discs on its fiddly doing it with a pipe wrench on the driveshaft.

[chimp427]

You could buy a boot kit from a motor factors and use the packet of grease they provide as a guide, i would guess that a tablespoon is about right.

[N7GTX]

Clean out as much of the old grease as you can. Then pack some new lithium based grease into the joints and reassemble. Before fitting the boot apply some more to the working parts then fit the boot.

Fit all the screws finger tight, then using a good screwdriver laid between two screw heads, hold the driveshaft while tightening one of the others. Then do them all up like this one by one.

[jazzdude]

The point is that I haven't taken the boots off nor opened up the CV joint.

They are as they came off the car, less about a tablespoon of grease in each of the diff / hub sides.

Do I just put a tablespoon back or is there another way to know that there is the correct amount of grease in the CV without taking the boot off and cleaning the old grease.

[bluezeeland]

This picture has the sachet in it, for comparison of amount;

http://www.powersperformance.co.uk/store/slug/driv...

Personally I would (and i have) change the boots for new...

[Ozstyle]

Hi,
I recently removed a drive shaft to replace a CV joint.
I did repack the other CV joint with new grease as old grease was 20 yrs old.
Research indicates you need around 85-90 gms of CV grease for each CV joint (it needs to be the right type of moly spec grease). Buying a sachet of grease is the simplest way to make sure you get the right amount. If your CV joints/boots and grease are in good condition I would just replace the driveshafts, I too cleaned out some grease from the diff flange cups which was doing nothing, as long as you have not lost any grease out of the joints I don't see an issue.
To tighten the flange bolts, stand on the foot brake then pull on the hand brake hard and put into reverse or forward gear depending on which flange you are tightening. You need to make sure the bolt threads and hole threads are clean of grease and tighten cap bolts to 65 ftlbs (apparently early bolts had a smaller hex hey fitting which can strip). You will need to release the hand brake to rotate the drive shaft to get access to all the cap bolts due to lack of room. I double checked all bolts twice as you hear stories of them coming loose.

Ozstyle

[jazzdude]

Thanks, the boots are in good condition so I don't see a reason to take them off and replace them.

I'm leaning towards putting a tablespoon of grease back in to them before fitting as that is what I found in the cups.

As the hubs and brakes are not back on the car yet I will try using the screwdriver technique described above as that seems like an easier way that yielding a heavy pipe wrench on the driveshaft.

Loctite on the bolts.