The left side outer driveshaft boot is completely torn in my civic. Grease is all over the wheel and tire. The right side boot did not tear but it is worn. No noise is heard when driving and turning the car. How hard is it to replace both boots? I need these replaced before Monday.

 

well that depends on how dumb you are are but I would say one of the easiest things you will ever do besides changing your oil

 

It's a mess to do yourself. the axle grease just sucks. better to take the axle off and bring it to mike's driveline off of busch blvd before your cv joint starts clicking. and i believe you are thinking of the cv boot.

 

Bullshit.

This is definately not a simple thing to do and I would not suggest you attempt it yourself if you've never done so before or don't have the tools for the job. You've got to pop the balljoint, remove the axle, and since it's the outter boot, you'll have to remove the inner boot and disassemble the bearing assembly just to put a new boot on. The quickest thing to do would be to go so far as removing the axle and then taking it to somewhere to get the boot redone. Oh..and like the poster above said, the grease sucks.

 

You can remove the outer joint without taking apart the inner. It requires the use of a slide hammer or if you are daring and sure with a noral hammer you can use that. I had to do this alot when I worked at a Honda repair shop. Hell you can even do the outer without removing the axle from the tranny. My frined at Honda did two in 12 minutes and by the labor book that is worth three hours pay.

But as Bill said if you can get the axle out just take it to a driveshaft shop. Mike's Drivelines is good.

 

Whoooooaaaa there....
Let's back up a bit. Just how did you go about removing the outer joint? I was always under the impression that any attempt to remove it from the spline would result in damage to the bearing race?!?! Son of a bitch...this would have saved me a ton of time in the past. So, basically just open it up, remove the snap-rings, and remove the ball cage with a slide hammer?

 

Basically just remove the boot and knock it off. My friend at Honda uses a slide hammer I always just used a small sledge like hammer and placed one clean blow on the outer side. The ideal way would be to set it up in a nice clamp and use the slide hammer. The outer joint/bearing assembly can then be tapped back in.
Sounded kind of crazy to me the first but it works. My problem is that I always have a tough time with getting the bands not to leak. I never noticed any adverse effects to the axle. BTW the slide hammer is the way it is done at Honda dealerships or at least Gateway Honda, they even leave the axle in the car although I've never tried it or seen it done that way.

 

Thanks for replies. I definitely don't have the tools for this job and time has become an issue. I'll have to get it done asap at a repair shop.