Our daughter bought a high mileage ~190k R53 from a friend of ours. It has been well maintained, receiving all the recommended factory services plus having any issues addressed.

I was chasing an oil leak on the firewall side of the engine, looks to be oil filter housing, when I noticed that the inner boot on the driver side was torn. Based on the mileage, I plan to replace both axles and was looking for recommendations. Was thinking of going with the Cardone reman axles. The step up to the GKN axles is pretty steep and not sure if this is where I should spend her money. This will be driven as a commuter at school.

Plan to do the timing chain later this year, but wondered if it is worth changing the tensioner beforehand or if it is even recommended without a new timing chain, the service records I have do not show that it has been done.

TIA

 

stock axles only, buy the boots, inspect clean and repack them

 

The tensioner is fairly cheap and you should have a lot easier access when the oil filter housing is removed. The o-ring is probably adding to the oil leak too. I would do them at the same time if it were my car.

 

Also replace the BPV if it has never been changed

 

Woodie,

My kid is also using the R53 for commuting. We've used the car as a learning project so we bought a beater and it has given us plenty of learning opportunities. We've done most of the usual suspects in terms of maintenance and most of the repairs are pretty straightforward as you will see.

The axles we installed were the DTA ones from Amazon, a little more than the Cardone brand. These were the ones ModMini put on in one of his videos. So far so good. Had one issue where the outboard cv boot started leaking grease. DTA quickly replaced the whole axle. It's a bit of a pain to replace, but nothing more than maybe 45 mins from start to tools back into the chest. It's been about 1500 miles and so far so good. No driveline vibrations or other issues either.

 

Thanks everyone for the advise and suggestions. Finally back working on car. Does anyone have a surefire way of removing lower ball joint from strut? When I pulled passenger side axle, I split the ball joint away from lower control arm. A check of the ball joint shows it is probably OK, but with the number of miles and the fact I have it apart...... I have soaked in penetrant and was considering a gentle application of the flame wrench or possibly a drift on the exposed lip.

TIA
woodie

 

I used a punch and a hammer on the exposed lip. It was a bit of a fight, but got it out. I applied some anti seize to the joint when I reinstalled them to improve their chances of coming apart next time.

 

I put the autozone axles on my daughter’s R52. Lifetime warranty! Kept the original ones for future rebuild. Money was tight at the time.

 

Ball joint out, oil filter housing gasket replaced, oil cooler gaskets replaced. I fired up engine before putting in axle to confirm that all oil leaks were gone. All looked good, went inside to grab some tools and parts. When I slid under the car again, noticed a small oil drip on the oil cooler to oil filter housing split. Thinking I might have spilled a little oil from lubing up the o-ring on the oil filter, I cleaned everything up. Fired up the engine and watched. After five minutes a very small drip started to appear around the lower oil cooler gasket area.

Manual makes no mention of using anything on the gaskets and I loath to use RTV. Thinking about re-assembling with some Permatex gasket sealant. Anyone had a similar issue with their oil cooler?

TIA
woodie

 

I had to replace mine twice. Never figured out why. Same with front main. I seem to remember there is ni torque for the oil cooler bolts so I just made mine tight.

good luck. Hooe you can get it to stop.