Austin 1800 CV Dust Boots

PREMATURE DUST BOOT FAILURE ON EARLY MK I's

A painful story by Eriks Skinkis - 13th April 2004

We are the very proud 2nd owners of a early Mk I Austin 1800. While the paintwork is a little weathered, the rest of the car has been well maintained and is fairly original. The car is used as a daily driver and apart from one frustrating recurring problem the car has been an absolute dream.

The recurring problem has been the repeated failure of the dust boots on the CV joints, typically lasting only 6 to 9 months. While I've gotten quite good at changing the dust boots it's not a job I enjoy.

After asking around it seemed that this wasn't a common problem and no one could offer an explanation. Then one day while flicking through the Scientific Publications Workshop Manual I noticed a photo of a CV joint, it was different to ours! I then checked the BMC Workshop Manual and it shows a sketch matching our CV joint, but also a foonote mentioning the existence of two types of CV joint.

It appears that there were two different type of CV joint used during the production of the 1800, an early style, and the later more common style. Not totally sure when the change over period was but most likely when they changed from the single piece drivershafts to the spring loaded variety.

Most of the people I'd spoken to had either Mk II 1800's or had changed the driveshafts (and associated CV joints) in their Mk I's over to later automatic driveshafts with steel universal joints when they had experienced problems with the rubber universal joints (but thats another story).

read on...

Early style CV Later Style CV

Photo courtesy Eriks Skinkis

The photo shows the difference between the early and later style CV casings. The later style has a raised lip around the end that the dust boot clips over. The earlier style has a groove about 20mm from the end of the body where the dust boot clips into. The dust boots would easily stretch the extra 20mm and clip into place fine, there was still plenty of free movement for the dust boots to stretch further. However as the dust boots were now having to work from a partially stretched position they were also prematurely fatiguing!

We even took the parts into our local Repco store one day to see if a better fitting boot could be found, but after a thorough search through all their stock nothing was available.

The obvious answer was to sell the car and buy a Mk II, but as I like doing things the hard way, and I love removing the driveshafts (can you tell how enthusiastic I am?) we are fitting the later style CV joints to enable us to join the ranks of Austin 1800 owners who don't have dust boot problems.

Eriks Skinkis

	PREMATURE DUST BOOT FAILURE ON EARLY MK I's A painful story by Eriks Skinkis - 13th April 2004 We are the very proud 2nd owners of a early Mk I Austin 1800. While the paintwork is a little weathered, the rest of the car has been well maintained and is fairly original. The car is used as a daily driver and apart from one frustrating recurring problem the car has been an absolute dream. The recurring problem has been the repeated failure of the dust boots on the CV joints, typically lasting only 6 to 9 months. While I've gotten quite good at changing the dust boots it's not a job I enjoy. After asking around it seemed that this wasn't a common problem and no one could offer an explanation. Then one day while flicking through the Scientific Publications Workshop Manual I noticed a photo of a CV joint, it was different to ours! I then checked the BMC Workshop Manual and it shows a sketch matching our CV joint, but also a foonote mentioning the existence of two types of CV joint. It appears that there were two different type of CV joint used during the production of the 1800, an early style, and the later more common style. Not totally sure when the change over period was but most likely when they changed from the single piece drivershafts to the spring loaded variety. Most of the people I'd spoken to had either Mk II 1800's or had changed the driveshafts (and associated CV joints) in their Mk I's over to later automatic driveshafts with steel universal joints when they had experienced problems with the rubber universal joints (but thats another story). read on...
	Early style CV Later Style CV
	Photo courtesy Eriks Skinkis The photo shows the difference between the early and later style CV casings. The later style has a raised lip around the end that the dust boot clips over. The earlier style has a groove about 20mm from the end of the body where the dust boot clips into. The dust boots would easily stretch the extra 20mm and clip into place fine, there was still plenty of free movement for the dust boots to stretch further. However as the dust boots were now having to work from a partially stretched position they were also prematurely fatiguing! We even took the parts into our local Repco store one day to see if a better fitting boot could be found, but after a thorough search through all their stock nothing was available. The obvious answer was to sell the car and buy a Mk II, but as I like doing things the hard way, and I love removing the driveshafts (can you tell how enthusiastic I am?) we are fitting the later style CV joints to enable us to join the ranks of Austin 1800 owners who don't have dust boot problems. Eriks Skinkis