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How do I change my cv/lobro joints


dern

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If you have clunking, grinding or other nasty noises from your cv joints or you can see play in the joints as you move your wheel (rotate wheel and inner CV should rotate with no delay) then you need some new ones...

Did mine this weekend so the procedure is as follows...

Buy some new CV joints (or lobros as they also seem to be called). You need 4 ford sierra XR4x4 rear driveshaft CV joints. Make sure you know if you're getting kits or just the CV joints. If you get kits then the chances are you'll be getting the boot and the grease with the joint. If not then you'll also need to buy the boots which will (should) come with satchets of grease and some clips. The grease is black moly grease by the way. Chances are the CV joints will be remanufactured unless you buy posh new ones and you'll need to take back the old ones to get the surcharge back.

Buy a big roll of blue paper and some latex gloves and put your old clothes on. Don't do this in the house as old moly stinks and your better half will go berserk and your kids will be attracted to the old moly like, erm, kids to mucky ****e. Some sandwich bags (4) will be handy (see later) and some news paper for your work bench would be a good idea.

Chock front wheels, jack up the back of the car and support on axle stands.

Loosen all of the bolts holding the cv joints on both side to the diff and to the hubs but don't take them out... the reason you are doing this now is that you want to be able to hold the wheel as you undo the bolts and if you remove all of the bolts from the outer cv before you tackle the inner then you'll have nothing to brace against. The bolts will either be hex socketed or star socketed. If the bolts look rusty then soak them in a good penetrating oil (ie something like plusgas and not wd40) for a while. If they still don't free off then do it again. Do not be tempted to put all of your weight on the free hex driver bit came with the electric screwdriver you got for christmas that you've cobbled together with a socket attached to your ratchet driver as it will break.

Now take the wheels off (with handbrake on) and release the handbrake.

From now on work on one side at a time so you can refer back to the other side when you've dropped all the bits on the floor.

Check if the wishbones are at the bottom of their travel. If they aren't then you'll be able to remove the bottom wishbone bolts which join the wishbone to the hub and this will allow you to swing the hub out that little bit to allow you to remove the driveshaft without forcing it. If the wishbones are at the bottom of their travel you'll want to put some spring compressors on so that the spring doesn't expand when you remove the wishbone bolts.

Now remove the bolts holding the cv joints to the hub and to the diff and remove the driveshaft. Clean the old grease out of the hub and the diff hollows with some blue paper. Don't leave the blue paper on the floor because you will tread on it and you will tread old moly grease through the house when you need to pee and you'll get wrong off the other half. Don't try and clean old moly grease out of the carpet with white spirit.

Take the driveshaft to your bench and lay it on the newspaper. The newspaper is a great idea because when you need a clean surface for reassembly you can just turn to the next page.

Remove all the bolts and the washer things and put them in a safe place. To remove the CVs from the drive shaft you'll need to remove the outer circlip using the proper plier things. If you've used a screw driver then fetch eyewash and/or plasters from the kitchen, clean the moly off the kitchen floor and then spend an hour looking for the circlip. Slide the CV off the driveshaft. It may require encouragement with the hammer but try not to hit the splines - best bet is to lay an open ended spanner on the cv and hit that rather than the cv or the driveshaft. Remove the inner circlip which is bigger than the outer one and slide off the boot (you'll have already cut off the clips holding the boot first checking that new ones came with the replacement boot). Do this for both CVs.

Clean the drive shaft. Paint it if you've got nothing better to do.

Slide the small boot clip on to the driveshaft followed by the boot... smear the inside lip of the narrow bit of the boot with some moly to make this easier. Place the large boot clip on the boot. Next put on the metal collar thing that you will have already cleaned of old moly with the blue paper. Now refit the larger of the two circlips. Then slide the CV joint on to the shaft, the line goes towards the outside. It may need encouraging but it it's easier if you put a little smear of moly on the splines. If it does need encouraging then use a socket small enough only to touch the inner race yet large enough to clear the splines. When the CV is home then put the smaller circlip on. Cut the corner of the moly satchet off and work half of it into the inside of the bearing. Before you put moly on the outside mate the collar to the CV inserting two bolts to make sure the holes line up (thanks Justin ;)) and tighten up the boot clips. Chances are the boot clips will be the metal type which you do up as tight as you can by hand and then you nip up the sticky out bit (you'll know what I mean when you see it) with a pair of pincers. Now work moly into the outside of the race. Be careful not to over articulate the CV because the ball bearings will fall out, get dirty and you'll have a b******* of a job cleaning it all and getting it back together. Now tie a sandwich bag over the end to clean dirt out and do the other end. Don't forget to put things on in the order of small boot clip, boot, big boot clip, collar, big circlip, CV, small circlip or by crikey you'll swear.

Now you have a finished driveshaft and you can put it back on the car. Assembly is the reverse of disassembly - no, really, it is. Don't forget to tighten it all up. You can use threadlock or lock wire on the CV bolts or leave it to chance if you like.

Do the other side.

While you're under there check the diff oil level.

Job done. I think it took me somewhere between 3 and 4 hours to do both sides. But Justin came round and we chatted a fair bit, it rained off and on which stopped play a couple of times, nothing went wrong and I had airtools which makes whizzing the CV bolts out a doddle given the limited space.

Mark

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  • 2 weeks later...

Addendum... don't forget to readjust your speed sendor location especially if you've replaced some missing washer things otherwise the bolts will take chunks out of the end and it won't work any more

:durr:

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  • 15 years later...
On 02/04/2006 at 21:26, dern said:

you can see play in the joints as you move your wheel (rotate wheel and inner CV should rotate with no delay) then you need some new ones...

 

Found this old thread via Google🤡

 

Can anyone confirm the above is correct please?🤔

 

My Sierra Lobros all seem to have quite a lot of slack in them when you turn the wheel by hand, so is the above correct or do they normally have some 'slop' in the joints?🤷🏾‍♂️

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Mine that i fitted during the rebuild have in/out plunge, as you’d expect, but with the normal grease packing, no rotational slop, if that makes sense. Whilst fitting them and they were still dry, I seem to recal you could feel a very tiny bit of movement, more as a slight click as contact was made, than an actual delay.

 

The old driveshafts that came off the car are the same, no rotational slack to speak of.

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49 minutes ago, Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said:

in/out plunge, as you’d expect, but with the normal grease packing, no rotational slop

 

Thanks👍

 

I've had a noise from the rear,now wondering if these are the issue🤬

 

I'll take a video of the play tomoz and see what you think

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

there are different sizes, make sure you get the correct PCD

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