CV Boot Best Brand and Supplier FAQ

[Busstom]

[udidwht]

[floydismydog]

So. My CV boots need replaced this year on my '70. What's the consensus on what brand I should try? What did you find out, Corey?

[cdennisg]

[jtauxe]

[Wildthings]

[floydismydog]

Thanks all! Yes, seems like a crap shoot, just like buying my bus was. I'll order some Monday. Vay is always a fine place to be.

[brandt]

I have a bunch of boots to do as well and just reviewed this thread and researched boots a few days ago. I've decided to try my luck with the Rein/Continental boots.

[Hoody]

I have been playing around with rubber protectors for a couple of years now. Just taking old rubber and seeing how it reacts to 2 different types of protectant-reguvenator. The only 2 I have really tried out are 303 and Gummi Pflege. 303 is more for UV protection. A very good product for lots of applications where the sun is an issue. Gummi Pdlege has impressed the hell out of me for its ability to restore 30 year old rubber to like new pliability. I found some NOS seat stand mats that were in storage for 25 years. I saturated them with Gummi Pflege and they are like new now in terms of being soft and pliable. I found a used distributor cover for another project which are quite rare and soaked it with 303....multiple times. Not much of a noticable difference. After drenching it with Gummi Pflege it's now really soft and like new. So what I have gathered is that 303 is the best UV sun tan protection you can buy. I use it on any place in the Bus the sun can reach. I will be coating every other exposed seal and my boots with Gummi Pflege. It appears to be a protective barrier. I wish I would have discovered it before I built my cv joints so I could have coated the inside of the boots as well.

[chimneyfish]

So further to my post on page 9 here is an update on this ongoing CV boot experiment / saga.

You will read in that post that one of the genuine NOS boots failed shortly after fitting. Anyway, 12 months after fitting, all had or were about to fail:

The moral of the story, NOS boots look good out of the box, but people's suspicions on 20 year old rubber are correct, don't bother with NOS ones. I don't blame the supplier, they had netted a ton of NOS parts, and advertised the boots as such, but NOS just didn't work out.

I am now running 3 x brand new genuine VW Made In Germany (not Brazil) boots with the 2018 sell by date on the boxes, fitted late July, and 1 x GKN Lobro that is doing fine. Hopefully the new genuine boots will hold up, I'm hopeful they will as they cost a lot (£32.50 retail each, although I bought them with a small discount). I will report if and when the genuine ones fail (I'm hoping they make it to 2020 at least! They have now done 2,000 miles and all is good).

They come with a 90g sachet of Moly grease and a decent circlip (tighter and ever so slightly machined smaller than the VW Brazil made circlips that appear to sloppy), but there is no CV boot crimp clip for the end of the rubber to the driveshaft (which is a pain and you have to source those elsewhere), nor bolts and washers.

They are also 'tight' when mating the overlapping rim to the face of the GKN Lobro CVs, I have tried to show this in the picture where you will see the mating surface area and lip is at an angle, but when you start to gradually tighten the bolts in a proper sequence at opposites, all comes true and they make an excellent fit at final torque setting, which is probably a good thing, see here before fitting and gradual tightening of the torx bolts (and original cupped spring washers for the bolts, so the NOS kits were good for something) in sequence and torquing:

This then formed itself perfectly and tight around the CV, with no play, so my initial panic that the metal mating flange area was too small turned to me thinking they were very well engineered.

The experiment continues!

You can get the genuine VW new German made boots here, and the pound currently weak the price will be more palatable to you guys in North America and elsewhere:

https://www.vwheritage.com/shop/bay-bus/211598201/...StartRow=1
_________________
1965 Type 1 Deluxe (1200cc)
1976 Type 2 T2b Microbus L (1800cc Type 4)
Previously...
1972 T2 Camper (Devon), 1988 Golf, 1972 Type 1, 1984 Polo, 1972 T2 Camper (Danbury)

[69BahamaYellow]

Try some Moog 2401 Boots. They're only $12 each, and seem to be working fine on mine. I've had bad experience with NOS boots also. See this writeup on Samba

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=660312&highlight=cv+boot

[chimneyfish]

Thanks for the link, interesting write up on the Moog boots, keep us updated when and if they start to wear. I will report back if and when the new German VW ones fail, or indeed if they keep going strong (I hope so).
_________________
1965 Type 1 Deluxe (1200cc)
1976 Type 2 T2b Microbus L (1800cc Type 4)
Previously...
1972 T2 Camper (Devon), 1988 Golf, 1972 Type 1, 1984 Polo, 1972 T2 Camper (Danbury)

[cool karmann collected]

I am in the dubious position of having four different brands of CV boot fitted at the moment due to the failure of 3 of the 4 FEBI branded boots i fitted ~4 years ago. They lasted approx 12,000 miles

I'm willing to bet that the 'Genuine VW' boots seen above and via the link that VWheritage are selling for £32 each (approx $40 today) are in fact re-boxed GKN Lobro kits seen here for £11 from euro car parts (£7.70 with the frequent 30 off deals they do)

http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/Volkswagen_Trans...amp;000445

How do I know? I fitted one recently and the pressing details on the flange and fitment described by chimneyfish are the same.

I've just ordered another set from ecp whilst they are available and the price is low.

For the record, I notice that VW heritage have stopped selling the Meyle boot kits, but they are in fact selling the same boot (the picture on their site even shows a Meyle kit!) now branded 'topran' - I picked one of these up recently and tried it out, I wasn't expecting much as I could see it was almost certainly a re-branded Meyle boot and sure enough it split within a few hundred miles just like the Meyle ones did. Another dud to avoid. Seen below at fitment.

I feel good about these GKN Lobros though, time will tell though.

Ant

[cdennisg]

This is great info. Thanks for updating about all of this.

I am still running a mix of 40 year old original boots that I have cleaned and resealed with black RTV, and a couple of new boots that came on the O'Reilly's complete new axles from China. So far, all is good. Two different buses, so not a ton of miles. But time seems to be a bigger factor than actual road use.
_________________
nothing

[chimneyfish]

The new German VW ones from VW Heritage definitely look different to my GKN Lobro boot, and are stamped VW-Audi:

Reassuring to know it wasn't just me with the fitment issue - although as said all came right in the end.

The Topran brand - tell me about it! You have my sympathy, as this weekend I too suffered because of it, my engine suddenly seemed a bit hesitant at low revs and idle when setting off from a local show. It was the vacuum hose for advance from the dual carb to the vacuum can. Brand? You guessed it, "Topran", and it's only been on there 12 months. It had disintegrated at the can end where it mates with the can. Small vacuum hose is the only cloth braided stuff I have on my bus (aside from I also use cloth braided stuff for the short links between the breather pipes). I'm going to read up on good 3.5-4mm vacuum hose.
_________________
1965 Type 1 Deluxe (1200cc)
1976 Type 2 T2b Microbus L (1800cc Type 4)
Previously...
1972 T2 Camper (Devon), 1988 Golf, 1972 Type 1, 1984 Polo, 1972 T2 Camper (Danbury)

[tristessa]

Just to put some pics out as a data/reference point, here's the EMPI CV boots I just retired from my '75. They have roughly 100K miles on them, purchased in late 2003 and installed in early 2004. No splits, and none of the cracking goes through to the interior. All were still holding grease and had no water intrusion. I didn't have the proper tool with me to crimp the Oetiker clamps on the small end when they were first installed, and by the time I did have the tool I decided not to bother because I felt they were secure enough as-is.
(yes, those are coolant & heater hoses above the axle in the second picture)

[alikatcraig]

I am going with the Empi ones, as I have had good luck with theirs on bugs. If you take care of potential future rust issues with cavity/underbody wax try using this on the rubber boots, it keeps it like new under the wax layer when dried. I did this on my ball joint/tie rod boots.
_________________
1967 Ghia
1971 Deluxe Microbus
1974 Convertible Bug
1973 Standard Bug
1998 Mexican Bug

[Ksprague]

So I tackled the CV joints yesterday.
Yeah, it's messy cleaning all the old gooky grease out, but the job wasn't nearly as scary as I feared. I was feeling pretty good - JUST about to start repacking the joints, and was looking forward to reinstalling the swing axels - but I came upon a problem with the boots and hit a wall.

I've got Mehle boots and they just don't seem to fit!
The flange opening is not big enough to slide over the outer ring. And even if it was, it doesn't look as if the throat of the flange is deep enough for it to seat properly.

I've searched through and found a lot of angst-ridden posts on the topic of CV boots, but nothing about this particular conundrum. Anybody know what I'm up against here?

_________________
Kevin
(1972 Campmobile "Maggie")

"The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began."
~ Bob Weir

[Ksprague]

another pic of that.

_________________
Kevin
(1972 Campmobile "Maggie")

"The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began."
~ Bob Weir

[71whitewesty]

Your CV joint looks a bit strange to me. Looks like there is a ridge on it in your picture on the left of the CV joint. The depth of your CV boot metal cover looks fine to me.
_________________
71 Westy 1600 DP, all stock Bus 1
1970's Snow Trac 1600 SP (sold 12/2016)
1968 Tucker sno cat, sold 2021
1969 Tucker Sno cat 542
2017 VW Alltrac
71 tin top stock 1600 DP (project but runs)
Twin 71 White Westy, Bus 2, that I pulled from a 15 year slumber in a dry eastern WA field in 2015.
1966 Sundial Camper "Boomer"