93 civic steering boot

I have a 93 civic AT with 203k miles. I'm in the process of replacing
both of the steering boots..i was wondering if there was a way to put
on the boot bands without a special tool. for the time being i have a
zip tie on one of them, but i paid a lot of money for those bands from
my stealership and would love to use them if i could. I was just
wondering if anyone else has had any experience with this. and by the
way, i didn't take out the whole shaft so its still in its softball
sized hole.

thanks

 

wrote in :

The special tool is less than $20 at many auto parts places. I've never
tried tightening a boot band without the tool, but I imagine you'd have a
lot of trouble getting proper tension on the band that way.

 

well, the people at the dealership were playing stupid and acted like
they didn't know what the tool was called, so they didn't tell
me...just told me to go check at autozone and such. I checked there
and advanced auto parts and came up with nothing. any other places
that you can think of? what is the name of the tool exactly? i have
this service manual that i downloaded and it says nothing about a tool
and shows that you can simply adjust them with you hand. i uploaded
the page on my school's server at: http://2007.ispace.ci.fsu.edu/~ral05c/boot.jpg

i just can't figure out how you would get the one metal piece that is
almost permanently bent past the first buckle to do what they are
showing

 

wrote in

Of course they would tell you that. They're in the business of selling
parts and service, not in educating their customers on how to fix their
cars.

You have the kind of band that's already formed into a loop, no? Those
don't need the tool. You just flip the rigid portion over and stake it
down.

Can you post a pic of the band itself? I'm looking at one here and I can't
see what the problem is.

 

Actually, i ended up getting them installed before i read this post.
There is a thicker piece of metal at the end of the band that is
already in a circle like shape. you have to bend that piece back onto
itself so that it get in between the first set of tabs past the notch
between them( if you just try to push it past it will always come up
short). By doing it this way, it allows that metal piece to catch the
part sticking up between the tabs...just push the metal piece towards
the next tab and it tightens up...then all you do is push the tabs
over on top of the band.

Thanks for all your help..hopefully someone else can learn from my
stupidness..NO SPECIAL TOOL NEEDED!! lol