Swing arm boots

[Adam]

Hi all, I currently have the body off my haf and have re sprayed it. All the rubber boots for swing arms are perished and need replacing. Thought I would go the single piece boots however after reading some old posts am a little scared!! Obviously have good access but taking side plates off diffs and bits popping out make me think I should fork out the extra coin for split boots??
Any thoughts??
Also handbrake cable boots stuffed and dale doesn't have any, should be able to find some generic boots????

[heinkeljb]

Single piece swing arm boots can be put on with the side plates still attached to the Diff housing, you only have to pull out the drive shaft from the diff..... Now before you start saying, that's easy!

The drive shafts have two studs upon which there are some bits called "stones" - basically, they are machined blocks of metal that fit snugly into the Differential. Getting the top and bottom "stones" lined up to go SQUARELY into the Differential can be challenging!!
Not impossible, but you will probably have several (Ok, lots and lots) attempts before managing it!

The split boots on the other hand are straight forward as long as you remember that the spilt goes under the lip on the swing arm on the forward side of the swing arm.

Handbrake cable rubber boot would just be any boot that you can find that will expand to fit the space when handbrake is off and squash when handbrake is on.

John

[Adam]

Cheers john, so I can safely remove axles from diff without anything going 'ping'??? Just tricky lining up stones again!! Given I have the body off I think I will stick to the one piece boots, thanks for advice.

[AustHaflinger]

You might want to rethink that - when I got my Haf my boots were also perished and I had to go through the same decision making process as you.

I decided it was a nonsense to have to dismantle half of the suspension to replace them if there was an issue. I went the split boot option and have not looked back. Doing various other work I have had to remove them a few times but did not have to pull the suspension apart.

At first they were a bit hard to master but having pulled them off a few times they are easy to use.

Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the "stones" all lined up to go back into the diffs, buy some really heavy grease to use as a glue to hold them in place and then try over and over to get them in and then as you put your boot on watch the stones pop back out.

A while back I had to work on one of the back hubs and the axle keep on slipping out of the diff - if I had "normal" boots I would have had to dismantle the suspension to get the boot off to get the stones back in - and over and over - I just split the boot and left it off until the job was finished (with the stones going in an out a few times) - have you tried removing the rear swing arms??

Again a stupid design - what person designs a diff where the oil also fills the swing arm. Why not a simple external CV on the drive shaft side of the diff that is not actually part of the diff the same as most other independent sprung cars - even in the 50s.

So if you are prepared to have to redo the boots each time you have to play with the suspension - then for sure go to original style boots - may be easy for you to do now with everything apart but if work is required in the future it may be problematic.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Garry

[Adam]

Split boots it is!!! Why make a relatively simple job hard?? Thanks for your advice!

[AustHaflinger]

The trick is plenty of sealant as a precaution and some of my large clamps where too big so I to cut them to remove a few mm and solder them back together - a typical issue with repro parts - no matter what boots you get make sure thet are quality rubber, many repro rubber products will perish before your eyes - dont get Indian product if at all possible.

Garry