But you'll make a 9 hour job of it and your arms and hands definitely will not like you when you're done. However, you will have a great time pushing and shoving with your wife and you will appreciate her a lot more afterwards... Also you will learn that if you're getting universal Flexx boots, they come in 2 sizes, car and SUV, and after peeling your hands and tearing a boot in half you will know then that you should have bought the SUV sized ones (of course, why wouldn't one think of that off the top of one's head...? ) which will give you a bit of a fight coming in, but if you have a good sized funnel, they will slip in after a good fight.
But it's doable...

__________________
[/SIGPIC]~cirrusman

1983 Mercedes Benz 300SD - Wife calls him "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
[SIGPIC]




1983 Toyota Tercel (Tommy, The little Toyota that could)
1965 Ford F100 (Grandma Ford)
2005 Toyota Sienna (Elsa, Wife's ride)


Gone:
1988 Toyota Pickup
2004 Subaru Outback

1987 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham
1986 Volvo 740 GL Station Wagon - Piece of junk.
1981 Volvo 242 DL 2 Door - Hated to see it go. R.I.P.
1987 Pontiac Fiero GT

So it is doable, but what else could you have done (including making money, spending fun time with family, etc.) in that 9 hours instead?

Im all for DIY to save a few bucks in jobs where it makes sense... and even some where it does not... but this seems like torture and that there are better ways to go about repairing axle shafts.

__________________
Current Diesels:
1981 240D (73K)
1982 300CD (169k)
1985 190D (169k)
1991 350SD (113k)
1991 350SD (206k)
1991 300D (228k)
1993 300SD (291k)
1993 300D 2.5T (338k)
1996 Dodge Ram CTD (442k)
1996 Dodge Ram CTD (265k)

Past Diesels:
1983 300D (228K)
1985 300D (233K)

Yeah, I'm with ya there... I could not get the filling bolt off the differential by any means, and i was kind of stripping it, so I didn't have much option there. But I spent some quality time with my wife who graciously helped me along with the boots, so the quality time with the family was there all the time I should get me one of those 7 ton lifts as soon as I have the $time$ which will make any job under the car a breeze...

__________________
[/SIGPIC]~cirrusman

1983 Mercedes Benz 300SD - Wife calls him "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
[SIGPIC]




1983 Toyota Tercel (Tommy, The little Toyota that could)
1965 Ford F100 (Grandma Ford)
2005 Toyota Sienna (Elsa, Wife's ride)


Gone:
1988 Toyota Pickup
2004 Subaru Outback

1987 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham
1986 Volvo 740 GL Station Wagon - Piece of junk.
1981 Volvo 242 DL 2 Door - Hated to see it go. R.I.P.
1987 Pontiac Fiero GT

I trumped up the cash for one of those air boot guns... I re-booted my W123 axles in under 20 mins - with the crappy flex boot things that are only probably good for 6 months of life I am told... I hope I was told wrong.

I'm not sure whether buying the gum was the good choice yet. It was quicker than a funnel - I bought that first - but I'm not impressed with the quality of the boots. I'm sure a "proper" axle boot job is better. It is the whole cost / time / patience / competence balance thing again.

__________________
1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Army, why didn't you use Mercedes boots. Not compatible with the flex gun or what? I do hope your boots last a long time.

__________________
Junqueyardjim
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. C.S. Lewis



1983 Mercedes W123 240D 4 Speed 285,000 on the road with a 617 turbo, beautiful butter yellow, license plate # 83 240D INDIANA

2003 Jaguar Type X, AWD. beautiful, good mileage,
Mom's car, but I won't let her drive it!

The Mercedes boots are not elastic enough, the gun would either break the boot or bend its own arms trying to stretch it.

I thought of getting the gun myself, but I thought $275 or so was a bit too much in the spirit of DIY of saving money... It sure would have saved me sore arms and hands though...

__________________
[/SIGPIC]~cirrusman

1983 Mercedes Benz 300SD - Wife calls him "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
[SIGPIC]




1983 Toyota Tercel (Tommy, The little Toyota that could)
1965 Ford F100 (Grandma Ford)
2005 Toyota Sienna (Elsa, Wife's ride)


Gone:
1988 Toyota Pickup
2004 Subaru Outback

1987 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham
1986 Volvo 740 GL Station Wagon - Piece of junk.
1981 Volvo 242 DL 2 Door - Hated to see it go. R.I.P.
1987 Pontiac Fiero GT

Hmmm well the real ones are made of decent 5 may be 6 mm thick rubber. My flex gun is a bit limp wristed and couldn't cope - however, it managed to split two of the 1mm flex boots before I managed to get them to fit. I kind of expected the Mercedes boots to be more like the old fashioned proper ones - rather than these fly-by-night do it real quick young pretenders...

My flex gun cost me about 75 euros on a special offer - it was reduced from about 100 I think... I only went down this route as I wanted a quick solution to try and get the car back on the road as soon as possible. However, as it turned out I could have rebuilt 16 axles in the time it has taken to organise and sort out other stuff - such is life!

__________________
1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!