[R129 SL] CV joint maintenance

[Steve Sims]

I'm not sure I'd worry about it, Derek....  The axle boots on all MB's tend
to be relatively long-lived.  My personal best record was an '83 240D with
~250K on the odometer.  The boots looked like, well, like they had 250,000
miles on 'em.  But in spite of surface cracks, they held in the oil.

This is a zero-maintenance item.  When they leak, you replace them.  Until
then, you ignore them.

I'd find something else to be anxious over, were I you.  ;-)

...sjs...
Richmond, VA
'97 SL500, 48,000 miles
&c.

-----Original Message-----
From: Derek Lee

New to the list, I own a 1990 500SL.  Anyway, despite the age, it only has
35K miles on it.  I was wondering about the four CV joints in the rear.
Since I don't have a factory manual (and MB doesn't seem to think I need
one), I was curious about maintenance on these.  I assume they're sealed,
and don't need any work until around 100K miles, but I was just working on
one of our Land Cruisers (with an unsealed Birfield CV in each front hub),
and got to thinking about when I would have to do this extremely messy job
on the SL.  I consider myself fairly Birfield-competent, having done
complete sets on both of our Cruisers, but I'm not sure if Mercedes used a
Birfield CV on the SL (probably not).  Anyway, any info, tips, tricks, etc.
would be welcome.