Almost exactly 10 years ago, I replaced the boots on the drive axles, as documented on this post. After I removed the engine and transmission from my DeLorean, I saw that the boots were still in great shape, but that the drive axles were caked in grease. They likely were seeping grease juice, causing them to look pretty nasty. Even though the boots were fine, I decided now would be as good of a time as any to restore the drive axles to as good of condition as I could.
They looked good from far, but far from good after taking them out of the car:
Again, the boots were fine, but grease juice had been escaping from somewhere. I thought I could do a better job of restoring these the second time around.
I knocked off the cap ends, cut the zip ties holding on the boots, and dove into the greasy mess.
On the end of the shaft, there is a c-clip that holds on the cup end. It's buried under the black grease in this picture:
I was much more careful in working on the axles this time by trying to keep surfaces clean with paper towels, wearing gloves, and not holding back on trying to get everything as clean as possible as I completely disassembled each drive axle.
Unlike last time, this go around I removed and cleaned everything. Last time, I cleaned things with the bearings still in the cup assembly, leaving a lot of the old grease in place. I wanted a completely fresh start this time.
I took it a step further and sandblasted all of the external components down to the bare metal. I then wiped them down with acetone before applying paint. For the shaft, I used black POR-15, which is some of the most durable paint that I have had experience with. For the other pieces, I either used black POR-15, or I used primer, gold engine paint, followed by an engine clear coat.
Before reassembling, it's important to know how the pieces fit together. You have the inner "star" inside the smaller circle that have wide and sharper points. The wide points need to align to the skinny sections on the outer circle and the skinny points need to align to the wider section, as shown in the photo below:
After several days of painting various coats, here are the pieces getting ready to be reassembled:
Here is the proper alignment of the outer section. It's important to not mess this up:
One curious thing I found when I disassembled my axles is that the c-clips were different from one shaft to the other. I much preferred those with the holes as it made it much easier to remove. I reused these as the new boot kit did not come with replacements:
After installing the c-clips, I then repacked the joints with new grease, starting with the outside.
I then put the outside cover on, using some sealant to prevent future seeping. Time will tell if this works.
I then packed the joint with grease on the shaft side:
I also applied some RTV sealant around the cup to prevent seeping around the large end of the boot. Again, we'll see if this works over time.
Both axles went back together nicely, after which I installed them in the car and torqued the new bolts down to 30 ft-lbs.
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