Step 1: Before lifting the car, break the wheel lugs (nuts holding the wheel on) on the side you want to remove the CV for.

Step 2: Lift the car just barely off the ground. Don't forget to walk around and check all four corners to make sure car is well seated and stable on the lift (which may also be called a rack, depending on whether you're from the east or the west coast) - this is important because someone is going to literally get in the car. Remove the wheel.

Step 3: Using a small flatheaded screwdriver, unbend the little tab on the big nut in the center holding the CV joint in.

Step 4: While a friend sits in the car with his foot on the brake, remove that bolt. (the friend on the brake keeps the hub from spinning)

Step 5: Remove the cotter pin and castle bolt from the lower ball joint. this picture shows the castle nut (that nut with a cotter pin sticking through it)

Step 6: Obtain a hanger first. Then remove the brake caliper and it's mounting bracket. You can see the back of the wheel (with CV joint already removed for clarity)here The bolts you want to remove are the innermost (closest to the driveshaft) bolts on the brake caliper assembly

Step 7: Remove the pin that goes through the shock connecting fork (?techincal name?). After unbolting it, you will have to drive it out with a hammer.

Step 8: (probebly not neccesary) : Remove the bolt that connects the cross-connect that goes across the car, unless you are replacing both, in which case you can simply disconnect both sides at once and this will drop down by itself obviously. (Side note: I'm a moron. Yes, I really did remove it, even though I was removing both CVs.)

Step 9: Using a bearing puller, shown here (where do you buy these things?) press the lower ball joint screw out of its socket.

Step 10: Have a friend pull down on the disc assembly. You want to be somewhat gentle, as CV joints are in fact somewhat fragile. (Trust me) You will have to use a flatheaded screwdriver or (preferrably) crow bar to nudge the CVs out of the transmission (if you look here you'll see the CV socket and damping weight - in order to get the transmission side off, put your crowbar between that and the transmission housing and tap gently a few times) after which it can be easily pushed out of the wheel with a small socket. Be ready to catch the driveshaft. It's kinda heavy.

NOTE: I haven't done the resinsertion of the CVs yet. It might be trickier. If so I'll try to rembember to update this page, but I might not, as it mostly just exists for my own edification.

By the way, just to keep the little man down the auto industry sells this as a complete assembly and then refers to it as if it were three seperate parts. (Well, I'm sure there are actually historical reasons for it, but it's still frustrating) A CV shaft is a pair of CV joints, a spline that goes into the drive wheel, and a spline that goes into your transmission. It's easily and cheaply replacable by yourself, using nothing but tools you might have in the house and a bearing press (shown later, and I'm sure you can buy them somewhere..). A lift helps, but isn't neccesary.

If you have a Brass Rat Alternate Technologies intranet account, you can find further informationhere