Just noticed both boots are torn with and dirt is inside. Can I just replace the boots or buy shafts and all?

 

If you are going that route, you'll want a set of boots from Toyota. People will scoff at this because of the cost and the mess it makes cleaning them, but I wanted OEM over some chinese mystery CV joints myself and went this route.

Some guy(forgot name) in Florida rebuilds (as in machines) OEM CV's but didnt have any for our vehicles. He recommended buying new OEM (at $400+) over the $60 versions. I figured he's as close to an expert as I will meet and he suggested to me that if mine weren't crunching they are worth rebooting, especially if I go off-roading. So, that's what I did. If you take your contaminated ones apart and the bearing surfaces are smooth and unpitted I would say its worth the reboot.

The Toyota kits come with the proper grease type and volume and boot clamps that need no tools.

You must disassemble them completely, clean them out with solvents and reassemble them. Its messy getting the mushy gritty grease out, and messy greasing them back up.

Lots of people seem happy with O'AutoQuest (whatever) CV's so you just have to decide how much of an OEM fanboy you are.

I disengaged the ADD system and added manual hubs to keep my boots from getting worn out in 2WD, so hopefully I wont have to do that again.

If I were going to get a used CV axle, I would probably reboot it before installing it.

Another thing about getting them off old cars, is you might be getting a $60 aftermarket boot anyway unless you can tell the difference visually. Be careful there.

 

What about the extra wear that dirt and gravel and sand etc etc put on the cv joint itself? Even though you might clean it out really good before you put a new boot on, you don't know how long that joint itself is gonna last after that.

Doing this it all depends on how long it had been like that and how much dirt was actually in there. If your boots have been torn for quite a while and you use 4wd alot, I would recommend you change the entire CV.

And those with ADD remember your cv's turn even though you don't use 4wd.