Replaced the Newstar brand, zipper-type right knuckle boot... again. I thought I'd got a couple years out of this set, but checked my receipts and it looks like it's only been about a year/4,500 mi. before this one gave out. Took about 2 hours total with no air/electric tools at an easy pace. Man when they go, they really go. Had a bit of a tear in it...
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THIS TIME I followed the advice of some folks here on SS, and cleaned every bit of grease off any point that may contact the boot, so hopefully it'll last a bit longer (as contact with grease has been said to degrade the boots). And, of course, I put the band screws at the top, double-nutted and loc-tited 'em, and made sure the brake line brackets etc. weren't touching the boot...
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I had been parking the truck with the wheels facing toward the right for awhile. Maybe that stressed the boot a bit, and made it fail sooner than it would have otherwise (or maybe the material the boots are made from still sucks as bad as it ever has). NEXT TIME a boot needs replacing, I'm going to do it over a weekend, so I have some R&D time, and I'm going to try making one out of black marine-grade Sunbrella material and seeing how that goes.