Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting How hard are CV joints to do?

How hard would it be for a mechanically inclined person with access to plenty of tools to replace the CV joints? How well is the Chilton's manual in regards to this, or does anybody know the procedure and good give me some tips.
Also, if I chicken out...How much do you think it would cost at the repair shop

Thanks
JG

Funny you should ask this... I just replaced my inner left side c/v tripod boot this evening. I did it in about 35 minutes, with air tools. If you were to do it with just hand tools, it would take quite a bit longer, depending on how long it takes to undo the spindle nut at the hubs...

I figure about 1 to 1.5 hours each side.

I'm looking at doing this over the next couple months. From the Haynes manual it looks like the outers will take about 4+ hours and require some special tools I'll borrow from autozone.

It normally takes me about 45 minutes to remove and install the spindle assy. Add about 10 minutes to the CV shaft if I have a slidehammer. I don't have air tool nor electrical tool neither, but I do have a very large and long piece of pipe! I doubt I'd use the tool from AutoZone, it'll probably tear your CV joints apart. The last time I went there and asked for tools, they showed me a slidehammer with an adapter pulling the shaft from the hubnut!