CV joint gator split - problem?

[petay_pan]

Whilest changing the front brake pads sunday afternoon I noticed on the drivers side few lumps of black stuff on the top of the wishbone...i went to wipe it off only to find it as thick black grease and knew at that point where it had come from and noticed the rubber gator was split on the driveshaft side where the jubilee clip is...luckily it's not all the way round but it's a good 1/2 the way.

I assume it needs to be fixed? is it a big job as from what i could tell only way to remove that thing is to slide it back up the driveshaft towards the engine??

tiny bit annoying as I have to spend out soon on the cambelt change so hoping this isnt going to bump up the labour charge too much if i ask him to fix this too.


one more thing.... noticed an exhaust bracket has come off aswell and was trying to remove it from the rubber bit so it didnt rattle but seems to be pretty tough to get out because of the barb on the end...any tricks to this or jud cut the barb off? looking to get stainless system soon anyway so not that fussed but still feels like car falling apart at the moment lol.

 

[Steve]

Yes you need to get it fixed before too long, otherwise the joint will dry out and a new one of those will be much more expensive. Mine went recently and as far as I can remember it only cost about a tenner for the part and then about an hour's labour to fit it. I only noticed mine had split because the wheel was splattered with thick black grease.

 

[petay_pan]

same as mine actually last time i cleaned it was noticing these big black sploges of stuff that wasn't brake dust...just passed it off as being tar from the road or something. will have to get him to do that as well. I did think it was pretty important to get it changed though.

always the way though everything happens at once! lol