Dismantling CV Joints - do I simply need a bigger hammer?

Just an interference fit.

Be cautious reinstalling the shafts or you new plates will end up looking like your old ones. The damage can really only happen during removal or installation.

 

One of mine looked like that. I took it to a good old fashioned blacksmith with a decent anvil & collection of metal working hammers & he straightened it up in about 2 minutes

(I'd be hitting that with a rubber mallet at an angle working round it to get it off)

 

Just tap the lip of the flange with some stiff platic acting as a drift moving round the flange, fairly easy to straighten once off.

 

Or grab a plastic/rubber mallet and carefully tap. It's pretty malleable around that collar. Be gentle and it'll go back into place. The joint comes apart if you rotate it "just so." Keep playing with it and it'll disassemble itself. Pay close attention to the orientation of the parts coming out and going back in. Birdman has a pretty perfect step by step illustrated description on his web site. I'm a complete novice and used his tutorial to do mine in an afternoon.

 

One more thing - there is conflicting information between different workshop manuals about how much grease to use in each joint. Can't remember the exact figures, I think one book says 140g, & another 100g - whatever the numbers, go with the lower amount.

 

Why 'lower #/amount ?'

 

I put the joint in a vise with the boot base resting on the top of the vise and the joint was between the jaws, no real pressure. I then tapped the joint downward out of the plate.

The deformation are so common that I think the factory did it as part of installing the engine. Failure to properly preserve these dents should be concorse points off. And probably you would need to recreate them for Classiche if you made them round again. Wobbly is factory correct, I believe.

 

Because (according to what I was able to find out at the time) 100g is the correct amount. Its almost impossible to get 140g in there without basically filling the boot with the stuff.

First time I did it I persevered & managed to get 140g in but it was a hell of a struggle.

Then I read about the conflicting information & 100g being the correct amount - so I took them apart & did it again with 100g - it was somewhat easier (but there is still plenty in there).

 

The way they were assembled it would have been near impossible for them to do it. I have never seen an original car with bent boot flanges.