CV joint grease anything special?

[perryg114]

I need to replace the boots on my car axels and was wondering if the grease that goes in there is anything special or will standard high temp moly grease work fine? The stuff I usually use is the Valvaline Moly grease in the cartridge.

Perry

 

[Black_Thunder]

why are you going through all the trouble of taking it all apart just to replace the boots?


i would just replace both shafts and be done with it.

 

[wileyE]

cv grease is special grease and not usually compatible with bearing or chassis grease. Like thunder stated, replacing the the whole shaft with a rebuilt one is usually the % move. If your boot heat baked, might want to make a heat shield while your down there.

 

[9c1]

CV joint grease is a special type like willey says. It is usually green colored, and comes packaged with the replacement boots.
Willey and BT are right. The nuisance of replacing the boots is not worth the aggravation. You can not do as good a job with the boot replacement kits as the shop can rebuilding them, and they give a warrantee. Get remanufactured shaft(s) and be done with it.

 

[perryg114]

The rebuilds are a pain in a butt. I have a FWD turbo Eclipse and the drive shafts that the shops are wanting to sell me are smaller in diameter on the left side than my shaft is. In the weak little 1.8 liter engine version of this car its not a big deal but when you put 200HP through the thing the thinner shaft is going to flex more causing even more torque steer than I already have.

 

[9c1]

Well that sounds like a good reason to go with a replacement boot kit. Look around for one that comes with the grease as part of the kit. I think we got ours at school (free labor from indentured students – it is also a learning experience for them) from NAPA.

 

[Wrehch]

Most good CV boot kits come with the clamps and the grease. It is a special grease so don't refill them with regular chassis grease.

 

[tdi-rick]

special grease ??

it's usually just a NLGI #2 Li complex + 3-5% moly EP grease ??
The only variations on this that I'm aware of are Land Rover. Late models use a NLGI #00 3% moly grease, early versions use SAE 80 or 90 gear oil.

 

[wileyE]

The stuff in the pouch that comes with most boot kits is polyurea. But I'm sure all kinds of stuff would work. Just wasn't sure how it would mix with lithium.

 

[tdi-rick]

Interesting. Polyurea and Lithium greases are incompatable.
There's a grease compatibility chart somewhere on BITOG.....

there is a good one here, just couldn't work out how to copy it.

 

[carock]

Reline makes CV joint grease. I have been using it for everything else in cars, like drive shafts and bearings. Is this okay?

 

[HondaMan]

The stuff is usually green.

I had a similar issue with an old SAAB and rebuilts... so I had them rebuild my originals.

 

[Quest]

Japanese cars with OE NTN shafts and joints the grease is typically black in colour, and it's very liquid than domestic counterparts.

 

[Master ACiD]

ive used wheel bearing grease, chassis grease, even motor oil one time.

i am starting to believe it doesnt matter what you use. as long as you repalce the boot before the actual joint gets contaminated and goes bad anyways.
by the way its normally quite easy to reaplce the boots. ive done it in more vehicles than i cam remember. the other thing is if you replace just the boot, or the whole shft you still gotta take the sucker out and put it back in, so its not much more work to replace the boot compared to spending extra on a whole shaft.
the savings can be nice too.

 

[Merkava_4]

I've got the CV boots going out on my front wheel drive Buick. From what I can tell, it looks like the boots are tearing along the line of the clamps. A very strange guacamole green coloured grease is starting to get flung around different parts of the engine compartment. I'm going to wait until the CV joints are totally trashed and then I'll replace them.

 

[Blake Sobiloff]

The outer passenger side boot tore on my girlfriend's car in just the past couple of months. The dealership wanted $500 to replace it--yikes! I've heard good things about RAxles, and they're asking about $150 for the entire half shaft, both CV joints, etc. That's about double the price of other aftermarket manufacturers, but still about a third of what even the discount OEM parts places are asking. I guess 100K miles isn't too bad a lifespan...

(Oh, and it comes with grease so I don't have to worry about it.

)

 

[pidster]

I can't really answer your question if it's any better than regular chassis grease, but I can tell you it's so easy to find and really not much more in price that I'd just go get it and not worry about it. Few bucks for peace of mind.

BTW I hear what you are saying on the OEM pieces compared to the flimsier rebuilt ones. [censored] rebuilt parts are plentiful, good ones can be tricky to find.