CV Joint Assy Made Easy

[aquillen]

Sort of. I've got a JDM 2007 Legacy suspension. The rear outer CVJs are NTN's EBJ 8 ball type. In about 1999 NTN came out with their new compact Efficiency Ball Joint with 8 ball to have much better efficiency, etc. Today this is supassed by an even newer type. Regarding the 8 ball type in particular - getting these back together might be easy or impossible if you don't know the way. Whether they are really NTN's product is a guess but I bet they are (so?).

I don't know if everyone takes these apart but I just HAVE to get into most things - half the fun seeing what's in there.

If you're gonna do it, for CVJ's, and most other stuff, "they" (who are they?) say... always put the balls, races, and such back in the same order/place. This is easy to get skipped in the teardown stage what with all that grease. Take a moment and Dremel (etc.) some ID marks. On big stuff, I have letter punches and I mark things. Sometimes just a dimple mark with a center punch on each piece. Common sense so you don't compromise strength, invite stress cracks, etc.

On the CVJ,s I used a small grinder bit and put marks on the parts so they can be assembled the same way. Now the ball bearings - sorry - skipped grinding on them. And they fall on the floor - no hope of tracking in my shop. I'll chance that they are so dog-gone close in dia. to each other that the whole CVJ will survive a mix up.



So parts marked. That is nice. If you did that you likely can get the CVJ right back together. If it is the 8-ball style here is the scoop. First, insert the bearings one at a time, opposite of each other - like in opposing pairs. Tip fully one way, put one in, then tip the other way. Easy at first, gets harder as you start filling the slots. Look at the slots in the bearing race/guide. Every other one is wide vs narrow. Start with a pair of WIDER slots, then the adjacent next set of narrow slots. You must end with doing a pair of narrow slots last. Pix will show why below.

Put some WD40 or light oil on everything after the first couple. It will make this way easier as it starts getting tight with parts.

You can use a soft drift punch or plastic/wood tool to tap the bearing guide and star bearing out to a full tilt angle. Just tap around a bit to the left, to the right, to center on the bits to keep getting it tipped further along. Even apply some heat to the housing to add clearance if you are not making progress.

Ya I'm done in this next pic but you see the brass drift in use to tip the assembly:



My guess is the lower ball count versions of the CVJ's aren't fussy at all about getting bearings in or out. But for the 8 ball cage, you have to start and finish on a "narrow" slot. Look at this picture and tell me why:



When the cage is tipped, the balls on each side of the outer most ball have to move toward each other. The narrow slots in the race don't let the balls move enough, and this stops the tilt of the cage short of where you can sneak the top ball in or out. The wide slots allow the side balls to move together more, and the whole cage can tip out just enough so you can pry the center ball in or out of the race. During tear down, you'd likely never notice this. During assembly, unless you hit on the right combo, you'll wreck things before fitting them together.

When assembled, I spray out the lube with cleaner of choice, and blow it clean with air. A 20ml syringe (handy to keep around - get some off an auction site) is a nice way to work grease in from the middle so it eventually oozes out the perimeter and you know it's behind the balls, etc. the ~80 to 100 grams is about a 3 ounce toss away cup full of grease by the way. Then another third of a cup (20 grams or so smeared around in the boot). But go by the factory manual by all means.

Want to read a little on these CVJ's ?

http://www.ntnamericas.com/en/websit...%205601-je.pdf

http://www.ntnglobal.com/en/products...75_en_P010.pdf

That is just a start on the NTN stuff you can dig up. In the end it doesn't change what you do here, but interesting info anyway.