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Please note that this procedure is definitely not for those that have never wielded a spanner before; if you are in any doubt whatsoever consult a qualified mechanic. This procedure involves disassembling part of the suspension, which is absolutely safety critical. If you break it, it’s not my fault.

I recently did the 50k mile service on my 2007 Jetta and noticed that the wheel and suspension components were covered in grease. Closer inspection revealed that this was leaking out of the CV joint boot around the larger metal clip. The CV (Constant Velocity) joint transits drive from the engine to the wheels and has to deal with the fact that the wheels aren’t in a constant position due to moving around on the suspension. It consists of the joint itself, on the end of the drive shaft, which is covered in grease — with a large plastic boot over it to keep the grease in, and water and dirt out. The boot is kept in place with a small metal band at one end, and a large metal band at the other end.

As I did not fancy paying approx £150 to get this fixed, and I try to do as much maintenance as I can myself, I read quite a lot of material including:

• Erwin (official VW manual – useful, but often requires the use of proprietary VW tools)
• The VW Golf/Jetta Haynes manual (pretty poorly written and hard to follow as there are very few diagrams)
• Various forum resources such as this, this, this and this thread on  UK-MKIVs.

Before I started, I was not sure if the boot was damaged and would have to be replaced entirely (requiring the joint to be withdrawn from the driveshaft). After  inspection, and removing the large metal band, it was clear that the boot was not damaged after all, simply the large metal band had come loose and started to leak. However, as a large amount of grease had leaked out, I needed to re-pack the joint with grease, and re-fit a new metal band. I was lucky that I did not have to remove the joint from the drive shaft, as this can be trickier.

You’ll need:

• a decent jack
• a decent large working area
• socket set
• torque wrench
• CV boot pliers such as the Laser 4136 CV boot pliers
• Latex gloves and kitchen roll for wiping up grease
• a reasonably well stocked tool kit
• Long breaker bar (600mm recommended)
• CV boot kit (approx £20 from parts desk of VW dealers – part number 1K0 498 203) – this comes with a boot, small and large bands, circlip, and two washers
• A new hub bolt (approx £3 – part number WHT 002 795)
• Three new suspension link bolts (approx £0.50 each – part number N 103 320 02)

Please check with the dealer the correct parts for your car before buying them, they will be able to check it from the VIN number of registration number.

Start by chocking the wheels on the other side of the car from which you are working. I was working on the near side (passenger side), so chocked the front and rear wheels on the off side (driver side). Use Latex gloves (pack of 100 available cheaply online) throughout to ensure that you don’t have to spend the next week scrubbing your hands.

Remove the centre cap from the alloy so that you can access the hub bolt. There are two types of hub bolts, one is a hexagon bolt, the other is a 12 point. Mine was 12 point. The hub bolt retains the drive shaft in the wheel bearing. Removing the centre cap from the alloy is easiest to do by taking the wheel off, and pushing it out from the other side using a screwdriver or similar.

If you took the wheel off, re-fit it, and lower the car to the ground so that it is sitting on its wheels again.

Pictured is the Laser 4136 CV boot pliers, the 12 point socket piece to remove the hub bolt, and the centre cap after being removed.

Start undoing the hub bolt. This is done up very tight, which is why the car is still on the ground. However, you must not loosen the hub bolt by any more than 90 degrees whilst the car is on the ground, or you could damage the wheel bearing.

After you have loosened the hub bolt by 90 degres, loosen the wheel nuts, jack the car up, support it on axle stands, and remove the wheel as normal.

Most instructions say that you should mark with a pen or small screwdriver the position of the ball joint plate relative to the suspension link arm, and around the bolts (marked in red in the picture below), so that you do not need to get the tracking adjusted after reassembling. However, the holes in the suspension link arm on my car are not elongated at all, and the plate will only fit back in one position, so this did not seem to be needed for me. Worth doing any way, in case your car is different.

(Sorry for out of focus; my Canon 17-85mm lens cannot focus at such short distances).

In focus shot from another angle.

You next need to undo the three bolts that retain the ball joint plate onto the suspension link arm. These bolts must be replaced with new ones when refitted.

Fully remove the hub bolt. You will have to pretend that the hub bolt is removed on the photo below; this was taken out of order as I didn’t want to get grease all over the camera.

Being careful not to damage the drive shaft splines, push the drive shaft out using something fairly large and round; I found that a socket extension worked well.

Once the three bolts have been removed, you should be able to push the suspension up slightly, allowing the suspension link arm to fall down. It is only these three bolts that prevent the suspension from rotating around. So, after the suspension link arm is removed you should be able to rotate the suspension slightly to the right, about the shock absorber, allowing you to fully withdraw the drive shaft from the hub. This should give you enough space to work on the CV joint, which will be positioned roughly where the brake caliper is now. Remove the brake caliper also if you need extra space to work on the CV joint.

You will now be able to remove the large metal band from the CV joint using a screwdriver. It was at this point I found out at this point that the CV joint boot was not damaged at all, it was just that the metal band had become loose enough to leak. I therefore did not remove the CV joint from the driveshaft. I simply repacked the joint with grease (from the CV joint kit) and fitted a new large band.

Tightening up the band sufficiently can be tricky, it is stainless steel and needs a large amount of force to deform it to tighten it. Some resource say that you should be able to use a nail puller, but I found that it was not possible to apply enough force to tighten the band, even pressing down with as much weight as possible. I therefore improvised something out of a piece of wood and a satellite dish mounting bracket to force the handles of the nail puller to close.

Although this allowed me to apply more force, it broke the nail pullers, even though the band was still not very tight.

I strongly recommend that you use a proper CV joint pliers such as the Laser 4136. This has two 1/2″ drive holes in the arm so that you can insert breaker bars to gain more leverage to tighten it up more. I would recommend that you tighten it up by hand as much as you can, before starting to put things back together. This involves:

• rotating the hub back into its straight position
• re-inserting the drive shaft into the hub
• re-engaging the suspension link arm with the bolts in the ball joint plate. This is done by lifting the suspension up slightly, until the holes align.
• refitting the three new bolts, and use a torque wrench to tighten up to the correct torque – 60Nm according to the VW manual.
• inserting the new hub bolt into the driveshaft and tightening it up; this will draw the drive shaft in as it is tightened. Put the car into gear, so that the drive shaft cannot rotate, to allow you to torque it to the correct torque – 70Nm according to the VW manual.

You can now work on further tightening up the large metal band.  Put the car into neutral, and use the brake disc to rotate the driveshaft until the tightening loop on the metal band is accessible.

Attach the pliers.

I found that the best way to further tighten was to put the torque wrench up to its maximum value, insert it into the bottom square hole (the breaker bar was too long and can only be attached at 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees, which isn’t flexible enough), and attach the socket arm to the upper hole with a short extension arm.

Pull down to tighten the jaws around the band, making sure that the extension arm does not unduly upset the balance. I found it easier to have only half of the jaws of the pliers touching the clamp at at time, and tightening each side at a time.

After tightening and wiping away excess grease.

You can now put the wheel back on, lower the car to the ground, and torque the hub bolt up further – it must be rotated a further 90 degrees, in addition to the 70Nm it was torqued whilst still in the air.

A final picture, showing all of the grease that previously leaked out and made a mess all over the alloy.