Ok I have finished repairing my cooling system, changed the radiator and all my coolant hoses except the heater hoses, they were in very good shape, looked fairly new, also changed the coolant pipe that is behind the exhaust manifold that leads to the heater, it was very rusty and loosing large flakes of metal if you touched it, was worried it would let go one day. The shop only had this blue silicone radiator hose in stock and I needed it now, got new lower ball joints today and the inner CV boots will be in at 9am tomorrow. I SHOULD have the car back together by Sunday since I wont have time tomorrow to work on it. Any advice on the best way to attach the inner CV boot clamp?

 

It had 10......count them 10!! Spline axles.......and they were about as big around as these CVs are. The grease in these CV boots reminds me of the stuff I made for my old Jeep's sealed knuckes, very goopy nasty stuff.

 

Houston, we've had a problem. A REALLY big problem, put the new boots on the left side CV axle, noticed that the inner boot was slightly shorter and narrower but I attributed that to being new and not stretched so what did I do? Grabbed a heat gun and stretched the sucker on and it fit....with some force, come to find out as I am doing the right side that the axle on the right is different than the left, the right side uses a smaller outer CV joint and boot than the left and thats also when I noticed the inner boot is much smaller than it really should be so I went to the parts place........they dont carry this boot anymore, its VERY hard to get but there is ONE in Vienna and will be here Wednesday afternoon, I wont be here then LOL. Guess the car will sit now for a month till I am back and work on it again and will probably be buried in snow too. I think the PO(s) changed the left axle at one point to the "newer" larger style since the computer only lists one size boot for both sides yet I have two different sized axles.

 

Ahhhh the joys of shade tree mechanics! Is it snowing yet?

Tan

 

Time to sell it! You have 2 vehicles listed in your sig.
You got 2006 Mazda 3 there? I know truck isn't.

 

No snow yet and I have to keep it, its the trash car, as in I use it for the papers where it does get beat up over time. Friend is going to finish working on it when the parts come in while I go home for Thanksgiving and X-Mass

 

Sounds like a long vacation. Coming back to USA?
Who's going to deliver papers?!