Let me start this chapter with a warning: One should never drive a half-shaft out of the front wheel bearing just by hitting it directly with a hammer! This will deform the end of the shaft, so that the fine thread on its end gets out of shape. Then, you will never be able again to turn a nut on that thread.

You may already have guessed that I learnt that empirically.

This however seems to be a possible way to repair such a damage:

A half-shaft nut is cut in half, the edges are thoroughly cleaned.

The halves of the nut are then re-assembled on the rear, intact part of the thread, and welded together again. The nut is then carefully turned back and over the end of the shaft, pressing the turns of the thread into the right shape again.

The method is not perfect, since the nut will not exactly follow the intact thread, but rather tend to “compromise” between the intact and the damaged part. It might anyhow have been easier to just get another shaft end on the junkyard…

For the CV joints, repair kits are available consisting of a replacement rubber sleeve, graphite grease, hose clamps and a new retaining ring. The original rubber sleeve still was in good condition, but was replaced anyhow.

These bearings manage to transmit rotation with constant (rotational) velocity - thus their name - at any angle. I did not disassemble the bearings to clean them more properly, since this is a lot of work and the old grease still was clean.

Putting new grease into the bearing (which also will displace most of the old grease), and the rest into the sleeve.

Here the right (longer) halfshaft has been reassembled. Note the small weight mounted near the middle of the shaft, it is obviously intended to cancel vibrations. I recognize that I should have invested the time to tidy up the workspace before making photos …

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