Sorry that no one replied earlier.
First, the CV joint is held to the hub assembly by the big castle nut under the wheel cover. It's general practice to loosen and/or remove that nut before removing the hub from the car because of the torque required. Once you have the CV off the hub (presumably with the driveshaft attached) you can disassemble things. From memory (and I think this was on the Mini and not another car) I have taken the driveshaft with CV to a vise and set the jaws apart to 'just clear' the shaft diameter. Then grasping the driveshaft I pull it downward (rapidly) through the vise until the CV bottoms out on the vise jaws. Typically this pops the CV off the driveshaft. It may take a couple of whacks like this to remove the joint. Once the driveshaft is out of the way you can rotate the CV cage to remove the internal bits.
CV joints are supposed to have axial play, not radial. If you can push/pull the CV in and out to and way from the hub, that's normal. If you can hold the castle nut and twist the driveshaft and have radial play under torsion, that's bad. When CV joints are failing (while driving) this torsional radial play can be heard as a rapid tick-tick-tick when you're pulling away from a stop with the wheels turned. Your finding the driveshaft harder to turn at certain places with the wheels turned may or may not indicate significant wear. If it's at the limits of wheel travel with the steering wheel at full lock it may just indicate you're running the CV in an area that isn't "broken in". Focus more on the amount of radial, torsional play in the joint with the wheels pointed straight ahead.
Up and down play of either ball joint indicates wear. One of the two (forgive me... I don't remember which) is also spring loaded. You remove the spring while determining how many shims are required for setting the correct clearance... then replace the spring before the final fitting of the shims and torquing the big nut. by the way, you need a 1-1/2" Deep socket for the ball joints along with a torque wrench capable of going 70 to 80 ft-lb. Don't assume that play means either ball joint is bad. Disassemble the joints and examine the components for wear. Bad scoring would dictate replacement. If that's not seen, go through the clearance setting procedure (with the shims). If you can take the play out by reducing the shim count, by all means re-use the parts.
On disk brakes the wheels studs are simply pounded back through the hub for removal. Oil them if you like but they are a press fit with splines so I don't think you'll find the oil necessary. Fitting the new stud is the reversal of the process but you'll find no good way to press or hammer them in from the back of the disk. What I've done is to fit the road wheel and lug nut and torque the lug nut to draw the stud in to the hub. When you do this it's necessary to re-torque that stud frequently during the first weeks of use as the stud will continually work its way "forward" into the hub as you drive. Keep the nuts tight.
If I've failed to address any of your points, please post again.
Edited by dklawson, 03 July 2007 - 01:58 PM.
