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Date:         Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:05:12 -0500
Reply-To:     Max Wellhouse <dimwittedmoose@CFU.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Max Wellhouse <dimwittedmoose@CFU.NET>
Subject:      Cheapo CV Boot repair(emergency only)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Our Subie Outback had a front inner boot blow and not having the cash for a new axle jsut yet, I got creative for a "keep the rest of the grease in there until I can fix it" shade tree repair. Most Walmarts and Harbor Freights have these small rolls of shrink wrap for shipping stuff and such and they come with like a white plastic handle for the wrapping part. The roll is maybe 7-8" in width. In additon to that, I used part of a roll of 3M 33+ electrical tape and a pair of semi sharp scissors or maybe a razor type knife might work too.

The inner boot on the Subie(and Syncro for that matter) is pretty congested in there making the rolling of the shrink wrap around the old boot somewhat difficult, so I jacked up the vehicle and had y wife manually spin the right front tire while I fed the shrink wrap through the smallest of gaps above the exhaust. I went back ands forth over the entire area from axle to CV joint buit didn't put a lot of pressure nthe stretch wrap. Snug, but not way tight. I made sure I was rolling the wrap so the end flap was pointing to the rear for roation's sake, and then had her rotate slowly and I covered it more or less with the electrical tape too.

My thinking was that the width and elasticity of the shrink wrap in combo with the ability of the electrical tape to stick to clean shrink wrap, maight jus t make a decent temporary boot. We've driven it for a few days with positive results so far. I didn't try to heat shrink the wrap over the old boot, but that may make a slightly cleaner temporary fix. I would feel lucky to have access to a heat gun during a roadside repair.

Anybody ever tried this fix??? I'm thinking the inboard CV's on the Vanagon could benefit from this, but how you'd feed that shrink wrap inside the hub housings, good luck with that.

YMMV

Max


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