[g259fsg]

I've recently been renewing the outer CV joints on our 1990 214GSi, the first time they've been done. The nearside gaiter had split, and on the other side there were ominous clunking sounds when turning corners. I investigated, and found that there hadn't been a good seal with the gaiter and water had got in. When I removed the gaiter some rusty water poured out! As a temporary fix, I cleaned it up in-situ and stuffed lots of Moly grease in it. That made things a lot better.

Time to renew the CVs and the gaiters etc. Had some trouble locating replacement CV joint kits, but found some from a company called Comline in Luton (http://www.comline.uk.com), part ECV024 for non-ABS.

To replace the joints, you need to disassemble the front-suspension, disconnecting the track-rod, tie bar and anti-roll bar and also the bottom ball-joint. As many of you know, the bottom joint is awkward to get to as it is directly under the drive shaft so you can't get a socket on it. Also found it difficult to get a ball-joint extractor on it. I used the scissor-type but had to grind a bit off the top to get it over the nut. The WSM tells you to disconnect this joint to detach the hub, however I found it easier to unbolt the bottom link arm from the chassis and leave the ball joint connected.

The WSM says to drain the gearbox and then lever the driveshafts out of the gearbox. A forum member suggested I could probably do the outer CVs without removing the shafts. I managed this on the off-side, but on the near-side the shaft pulled out as I was working on it and spilt some gearbox oil. There was a bit of an oil leak on that side of the gearbox anyway, so I took the opportunity to replace the oil seal (Part AAF1610). The hardest part of this job is getting the new CV joint onto the shaft as you have to compress the retaining circlip into a groove on the splined shaft as you drive the CV joint onto the end.

As I had the N/S shaft off the car, I had a look inside the inner CV joint and put some extra grease in it. The gaiter was in very good condition after 22 years - it has an easy life compared to the outer ones! When refitting the shaft into the gearbox, you are supposed to put on a new circlip (part ADU9892). The shaft goes in quite easily. If I was doing the job again, I would probably remove the driveshafts as it is much easier to work on them off the car.

Now, this is an intereting thing. As the O/S shaft stayed on the car, I decided to inspect the inner gaiter in situ and pack it with more grease. I released the gaiter and to my surprise some thick oil ran out of it instead of grease. Not what I expected. A bit of a mess so I let it drain out. The gaiter was doing a good job of containing it. Presumably it was originally grease, but seemed to have gone to oil over 22 years. The inner joint is directly above the exhaust pipe so I wonder if it has been cooked. Anyway, repacked with Moly grease, but I'll keep an eye on it in future.

Having drained the gearbox, I needed to refill it. As in an earlier thread, I was asking what would be the best stuff as the Rover WSM is rather specific. Members gave me some helpful suggestions, and I found Halfords have a suitable 75/80 gear oil. Searching around on eBay, I found a company down in South Wales (Nielsen) that supply all kinds of oil and are selling Total BV 75w/80 for £10.99 for 2 litres, which is the original type of oil specified for this Peugeot gearbox on the 214. It came the next day. Always wondered what BV stood for - Boites de Vitesses (Box of Speeds) as the French call a gearbox!

Finally, refilling the gearbox is quite awkward as the filler plug is on the side down the back of the gearbox. I made up a filling tube using 15mm copper tubing, with a reduced end to go into the box. This seemed quite effective as there were only a few drops of oil lost in filling the box. Here's a picture of the filler:

oilfiller1.jpg

All seemed well on the road test, so hopefully I won't have to revisit that for a while.

Cheers,
Hugh

[GTiJohn]

Interesting story and very ingenious filler

[E_T_V]

My filler is a little less well made. Works well though!

[g259fsg]

That's quite a head of oil you've got there! Should certainly work well.

[E_T_V]

Its quite narrow tube so I needed to put it up high to fill. It still took an hour to fill the box though (hence why I screwed it to the roof rather than held it there).