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Yesterday I noticed grease on my front wheel..due to CV Boot being split...perfect timing in this cold weather. It should be a straight forward job using a stretchy boot...but getting the bottom ball joint off seems to be the problem. Can the drive shaft be pulled out with the strut still bolted at the bottom ball joint? or does it need to come away from the lower arm?

The bottom ball joint needs to be split, you'll never get the end of the driveshaft out otherwise. I once used something like this http://mcc-marketing.co.uk/carparts/spl ... aiter.html did the job and lasted for a couple of months, which was long enough for me to get organised and change it for a proper one.

moodybluetwo wrote:Yesterday I noticed grease on my front wheel..due to CV Boot being split...perfect timing in this cold weather. It should be a straight forward job using a stretchy boot...but getting the bottom ball joint off seems to be the problem. Can the drive shaft be pulled out with the strut still bolted at the bottom ball joint? or does it need to come away from the lower arm?

Yes, you can split the strut at the nut and bolt at the bottom of the strut, it's a bit more difficult than taking out the ball joint but I always do that.
You can easily split the ball joint by taking off the big nut,(screwing it back on a little to protect the thread) and whacking the side of the bottom arm where the ball joint goes through, this will shock the ball joint off the taper.

I replaced the CV boot yesterday despite the cold weather and it took about 2 hours. The only problem was getting the bottom ball joint out of the lower arm...I used a bit of heat but you have to be very careful to avoid burning the ball joint rubber. After that it was straight forward as I was using a “stretchy” boot. I think the old boot was damaged by ice and snow as I drive along an unmade road to get to work so perhaps its worth while checking the boots more often in the winter?