How bad are these problems?

[JackG]

Originally Posted by insite

you pressed out the tie rod ends? what else did you do? agreed that you can spend a lot of time obsessing over cleanliness best not to use any cleaning agents inside the joint unless you clean everything w/ alcohol afterward. simply wipe out the excess grease w/ shop towels & re-grease on reassembly.

FYI, i DO have air tools, which help, but i DO use hand tools much of the time.

No, read my how-to in the link. I didn't do it the way the shop manual says to, instead the axle comes out from underneath the car towards the center and down. That's the opposite of the manual's procedure. It has you press out those tie rod ends (track arms, radius arms, whatever?) using a special tool, then swing the wheel carrier assembly out of the way and pull the axle straight out.

If the boot has been split for a while, I think it's a mistake not to clean the joint completely. If you just wipe away the exterior grease, you're pushing contaminated grease down into the joint... not a good thing. Wiping, using a parts cleaner, then final cleaning with brake parts cleaner from a can does the trick. Dries fast, no residue, and ready for clean, fresh grease.

I use air tools as well, but they don't save that much time it seems. I am counting time from when I twisted the key to pull it into the shop, until I drove it out and had everything cleaned up and put away. The whole job. But as I said, I'm slow and methodical. I enjoyed doing the work almost as much as driving afterwards. For me it's a sense of accomplishment... I love working on stuff.

[turbo23dog]

I just had inner boots on both sides done due to tears which were found during 30K miles service on a 2000 S. Cost was $600 which was $75 for parts and $525 labor. The joints were cleaned and repacked too.

[insite]

Originally Posted by JackG

If the boot has been split for a while, I think it's a mistake not to clean the joint completely. If you just wipe away the exterior grease, you're pushing contaminated grease down into the joint... not a good thing. Wiping, using a parts cleaner, then final cleaning with brake parts cleaner from a can does the trick. Dries fast, no residue, and ready for clean, fresh grease.

I use air tools as well, but they don't save that much time it seems. I am counting time from when I twisted the key to pull it into the shop, until I drove it out and had everything cleaned up and put away. The whole job. But as I said, I'm slow and methodical. I enjoyed doing the work almost as much as driving afterwards. For me it's a sense of accomplishment... I love working on stuff.

link not working; sounds like you did it the faster way. agreed that if the boot has been completely torn that careful cleaning is important. some cleaners have enzymes and such that continue to break down the new grease after reassembly, so it's important to follow up any degreasers with rubbing alcohol or other water based evaporative solvent (brake cleaner should be fine).

definitely enjoyable to work on these cars.

[JackG]

Originally Posted by insite

link not working; sounds like you did it the faster way.
definitely enjoyable to work on these cars.

Hmmm... I searched for my old post, then pasted the results into the response. I'm not sure why it doesn't work, but it doesn't! In any case, searching on "CV boot replacement" will give some results, and the second one titled "Replacing CV joint boots" is the one I was referring to.

My shop is occupied with an old muscle car right now, and the Boxster lives in the garage. It does take a while to move things around to work on something else, but it's all just fun to me. I'm learning to weld right now, and I'm just half-bad at it, but that's just another thing to have fun with. I hope I never grow up.

Make sure the cam cover leak isn't really a spark plug tube, which is fairly easy to replace.

[insite]

Originally Posted by EE3racing

Make sure the cam cover leak isn't really a spark plug tube, which is fairly easy to replace.

also in that general area are the oil return pumps. there's a TSB that replaces the four bolts in each return pump w/ microencapsulated bolts. apparently oil can leak past the OEM bolts.