G'day Folks,

{Sorry for the childish title but I'm in one of my moods}

What a difference ten years makes – 1981 W123 vs 1992 W201; if only I'd had bought one of the last W123s, I wouldn't have had the worst job on a W123 ever to contend with => trying to re-boot those bloody homo(kinetic) axles. Annular axle re-boot is in comparison a piece of piss.

So here's a few pictures of a W201 annular axle being re-booted with the “original” thick style boots.

I reckon these axles are so easy to do it is worthwhile considering these items as service items – every five years in a wet climate – whip 'em off the car; paint 'em up and give 'em a bit of grease! Go on you know you want to – easy weekend job if you get your ducks lined up.

It is especially worthwhile considering these items as service items (rather than wait until they break items) when you see what vstech found =>

w201-w210 rear axles NEED SERVICING!!!

It turns out that many axle shafts are left unpainted inside the axle boot (well there's some sort of electroplated coating but it isn't up to the job). If water gets in there – rust – rust eats – twist – dink...

This process is covered by the FSM – chapter 35-660. There's a lot of that chapter regurgitated here but I've added in some extra comments though that might make this all worthwhile. In my defence – the W201 FSM is not as well written as the W123 FSM and the pictures are crap.

You can remove the axles from your trusty W201 by loosening the bolts that hold the axle onto the differential.



Ignore the socket extension fitted to the differential drain plug in the picture above – concentrate on the bolts you can see next to the axle boot.

Please note because I got carried away the pictures below show axle removal with the sub frame removed from the car. Someone once told me I don't have to strip every bloody part of the car just to do the axle boots; but where's the fun in that? I mean where I live a Mercedes just isn't a Mercedes if it still has wheels on it...

...if like me you've also been a bit too keen and you've already yanked the differential off of the sub frame and pulled the C clips from the axle flanges =>



Then you'll have to whack the axle flanges in a vice to remove those bolts



The differential end of the axle looks like this



However, with the axles still on the car you need to remove the nut at the wheel





With care you can use a simple three legged puller to push the axle through the hub



In summary the method is => bolts at differential – nut at wheel hub – wiggle – compress – pull out. You might have to raise or lower the back end of the car to get the good angle on the dangle.

Cutting the clips carefully as shown makes the least mess







You can then just pull the boots away to see if you have some nasty rust in there – hopefully not





If you decide to do this check with the axle still on the car (this could be done this way in principle) then you're going to need to fit different clamps from the original style shown in the pictures above. Here's a link to a video showing a metal zip-tie-like effort.

LINK Installing a Clamp on a CV Boot - YouTube

Fitting the original (much tougher) style is shown below in a bit.

__________________
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!