Today I pulled back the boots on my axle shaft and greased up the cv joints.
To make a long story short, I had one bad axle boot clamp- bought a axle clamp tool.

Seeing the condition of the cv joint I reclamped (dry as Hell -or perhaps even Colorado) I decide to regrease all the other cv joints. I was surprised to find oil not grease in the cv joints . This also clarified to source of oil leaking around the diff.

The end result - I reduced some clunking in the drive axles. But I'm still confused about the oil?? What gives? I thought CV joints were always packed with grease?

Confused in PEI,


Aivars

Yes, they do have oil in them - I'd have to pull up the CDROM manual to see what type, but if memory serves it is called out as "Mercedes Oil # xxx xxx" and doesn't say what kind it is.

If you have the typical age syndrome on the axle shafts, the boots have lost their integrity enough to lose all the oil, and your CV joints have gone dry.

I had one boot go bad and it flung oil all over the wheel well. Then I kept going with duct tape ( ) which lasted maybe 1000 miles.

Then it was a pair of new axles for me - I wanted it fixed to last another 20 years........

So I wonder if you saw evidence of a cracked boot? An inexpensive attempt at a fix might be to try a new split boot, available from J.C. Whitney. Its a heck of a design when you have to either replace the axle or have special equipment to just replace bad boots!

Later MBs and the new replacement axles have a design wherein you don't need special tools to replace the boots.

Ken300D(s)
'82
'87

Thanks for the info Ken300d!

I didn't see any cracks in the boot that was leaking. It just about seemed that it was leaking around the clamp that holds the boot on. On the bright side I'm happy that the diff. isn't leaking . Hopefully I'm okay for a while - boot wise that is.

Aivars