Wheels/Tyres: V70 Front Wheel bearing

[Luxobarge]

OK, so I did the left side ABS ring and CV boots over the past couple of days (I only get a few hours a day to do fun things....)

Reason for taking the left side drive shaft apart is that I've been having intermittent ABS light on for quite a while now, and I knew both ABS rings were pretty corroded so I wanted to replace them and eliminate them from the possibilities. While I was in there I really wanted to replace the CV joint boots too, the outer one was OK but the inner one was showing significant signs of cracking and perishing so I thought if I could get the drive shaft out I'd do the lot. CV joints themselves are fine.

So I watched Robert DIY's video, and read the comments underneath, and decided that this could be quite a mission - one guy said he'd punched a hole in the side of the gearbox trying to get the drive shaft out! All sorts of hints and tips for levering and hammering though.

So I went ahead and took it all apart - all went predictably well just like the right side did, I dropped the control arm from the ball joint which came apart reasonably easily (as I thought it would), although I did give it a little encouragement by whacking a short wedge-shaped drift into the split opening, but no problem and no damage. Again, the drive shaft came out of the bearing splines no problem, even easier than the right one to be honest, didn't need to hammer the puller at all.

Then came the bit I was dreading, getting the drive shaft out of the gearbox. Before organising my supply of wedges and levers, as I was lying on my back down there anyway I thought I'd give it a trial tug, and pop! Out it came, first time, just by hand. Isn't it rewarding when you get a pleasant surprise like that?

So on to the bench to give the drive shaft a good clean up, knock the old ABS ring off and tap the new one on after a bit of heating, all no problem.

Then take the boot clips off and slide the outer boot up the shaft as far as it would go, and a LOT of sheets of kitchen towel later I'd removed as much grease as I could and could see what I was doing.

The circlip arrangement is not quite the same as shown in ITSV40's pictures above, but is very similar and functionally the same. First I tried expanding the circlip with a wide screwdriver, but this didn't work as I could only get a medium width screwdriver blade to go in to start opening it up, but rotated it's not wide enough to fully open the circlip, and I couldn't get a wide blade screwdriver to go in there in the first place.

So I got out my proper circlip pliers, and put the "expanding" blades on. These are really designed for the type of circlip that has small holes in the ends, but I found that if I held it steady I could fully open the circlip. Given that the shaft was now held in the vice on my bench this left a free hand to "tap" the centre of the joint outwards. A couple of sharp taps with a medium-size hammer and I could see the joint start to move, at which point the circlip is now held open by the splines, so I could tap all around the centre of the joint and it soon came off nicely, with no damage.

Next was to remove both boots (holy cow, what a lot of grease! A really messy job) and pop the new boots on, squeezing new grease into the joints. On with the new circlips, a final wipe down and we're ready to go, one nice shiny new looking drive shaft! I usually wear latex gloves, but this is a part of the job where they are REALLY useful.

A good clean up of the steering knuckle, especially around the ABS sensor, and the new shaft popped back in no problem. One thing to note: the videos and comments state that with the drive shaft out you will lose little or no gearbox oil (this is an auto). Basically this is true, but I actually had to leave the car overnight with the drive shaft out of the car, and in the morning there was the best part of a cupful of fluid in the drip tray, so it does drip out slowly. I replaced this by topping up through the gearbox dipstick hole, and will properly check the fluid level once I've done a decently long run to get it all fully up to temperature.

The rest of the re-assembly was straightforward just like the right side was, absolutely no problem. A quick test drive showed that it's all fine, smooth and silent, and no ABS light so far, although I'll need to do many more journeys before I'm confident in that.

I probably should go back to the right side and do the boots on that as well, although the right side is the "long" shaft with a carrier bearing in the middle, so I'd be strongly tempted to replace the whole shaft complete with joints, boots, bearings etc. if I did. It's fine for now though, I'll do that if and when the CV joint boots on the right side start falling apart.

Thanks again to all your helpful comments, it's really appreciated, I hope the above narrative is useful to others doing this job.

Cheers all

[Dippydog]

Sounds like a good job well done.Glad to hear you're all sorted.