CV Joints Keep Loosening up!

[Wendell #527]

After nearly every lap, my 1600 type car has one or two loose CV joints. I cleaned them good and used red locktite, but they still loosen. My shaft angle is only 25 degrees. I only have about 80 horsepower. I suppose I could drill the bolts so I could wire them in, but I'm really stumped as to why this happens. Last weekend I did one pre-run lap and the outer was loose on the right side and the inner was loose on the left side. You guys ever had this happen?

[Rory]

Wendell,

Make sure you don't have ANY CV grease in the holes of the bolts when putting them back together. Red locktite will not work if there is cv grease on the bolt. Here's what we do:
before putting cv on trans, take q-tips and go in each hole and make sure there is no grease in ANY of the cv bolt holes. Once in, start a couple bolts to hold in place, then use a q-tip again, swipe around in bolt hole (all the way to the threads) and look at the end...if there is grease on the end of the q-tip, repeat, repeat, repeat. It takes a while but it works. When there is no grease on the end of the q-tip, put red locktite on your bolt and torque to spec. Make sure if your torque spec is, lets say 45lbs, start at 20lbs, torque all bolts, then 45lbs. Hope that helps. Thats the way we have been doing it for years with no loose CV bolts...knock on wood.

[westtexasbaja]

After nearly every lap, my 1600 type car has one or two loose CV joints. I cleaned them good and used red locktite, but they still loosen. My shaft angle is only 25 degrees. I only have about 80 horsepower. I suppose I could drill the bolts so I could wire them in, but I'm really stumped as to why this happens. Last weekend I did one pre-run lap and the outer was loose on the right side and the inner was loose on the left side. You guys ever had this happen?

Grease on the threads when you slide the bolts in? Carb cleaner and a shot of air on the bell and bolt threads and a clean cv hole. Sometimes cv pushes grease into bolt holes when assembled.

[MikeLeung]

The only thing that I found worked on my 1600 car was drilled and wired CV bolts. Not sure if you can still find them, Sway Away stopped making them, but Kartek and McKenizes sold this predrilled CV bolts that were awesome.

[Fourstroker]

What type of boots are you using? If you are using the type that the boot flange is inside of the bolts do as the others have said. If you are using the overboot style, clean everything 100% and install them dry with red loctite. After torquing the CV pack the grease with a grease gun and needle until the grease starts pressing itself out the face of the CV. A pneumatic grease gun makes it super simple. We have never had a bolt come loose nor a CV failure due to lack of grease. Not to mention it is a hell of alot easier than trying to keep the grease off of the flanges when installing them greased.

[Jess@HighAngle]

We safety wire drill all of our bolts- it works great- Also a good re-torque is a must- after a few minutes hit them again and wire them-Jesse

[Superfab]

A few tips..an easy way to pack your cv's is to tape off the outers with masking tape or vinyl shelf paper. Then take a razor blade and cut out the center opening and trim the outside. This masks off all the surfaces. Tape off the hole in the star also. Pack the cv, remove the tape from the star and install the on the axles. Wipe off the rest of the cv. Now when you remove the masking all the surfaces and holes are grease free. I use vibra-tite available from Ababa Bolt on the threads. Let it dry for 10 min. then install & torque to 45 lbs. Run car for a few miles and retorqe. Use the same bolts repeatedly and you dont have to re-torque every time. The bolts will stretch once and won't back off. The vibra-tite is one of the few locking compounds that you can re-torque and still has locking properties. We use it on allmost every bolt on our race car and never have a bolt come off. Plus if you need to do a field repair, the bolt will still retain it's locking properties. Never had a failure in 25 years. One tip is to use a 12 point snap-on impact socket on you cv bolts. They will keep your bolts from getting chewed up by socket failure and possibly save your knuckles.

[powerbox_builder]

We always run our cars 40-50 miles before the race. Then retorque the CV bolts, as well as all the other suspension and steering bolts. Superfab is right about new bolts loosening, we try to reuse the CV bolts and flanges, they don't seem to loosen up as much after the first race.

[ASHCRAFT]

After nearly every lap, my 1600 type car has one or two loose CV joints. I cleaned them good and used red locktite, but they still loosen. My shaft angle is only 25 degrees. I only have about 80 horsepower. I suppose I could drill the bolts so I could wire them in, but I'm really stumped as to why this happens. Last weekend I did one pre-run lap and the outer was loose on the right side and the inner was loose on the left side. You guys ever had this happen?

How Many Ft lbs do you torque your bolts to?