CV Axle replacement

[nfpgasmask]

Ahhh, I see. So ok, yeah, in order to install that whole unit, you will indeed have to drop the whole front axle. Or at least I think it would be pretty damn difficult to do it without taking the axle housing out completely.

This is where the frustration begins, because I had one serious hell of a time getting the axle to drop clear without removal of the steering centerlink. I am in the same boat right at this moment with my Trooper, switching to 4.77s and in the process of doing so, I have to remove the front axle entirely. For the life of me, I cannot get the axle to drop all the way, because the steering link is in the way. So I am now faced with removing it, which is a serious pain and will likely force you to replace it as well. I've never been able to get one off without mangling the boots.

The pisser in your case is that if you had two extra CV band clamps, you could just leave your axle up and do it from the inner CV out.

Good luck,

Bart

[VXorado]

Mark,

If you end up dropping the diff to replace the complete axle assembly (half shaft+jack shaft), make sure to get new seals for the axle shafts. When I replaced mine (the third time ), I reused the old seals and got a leak. It was awful having to drop the entire diff again to replace one seal. Honestly, I wouldn't drop the diff if the green cups are in good shape. The OEM green cups will be stronger than these aftermarket sets. In this case, just make sure the new CVs are the same size as the OEM CVs.

[VXorado]

I do not think you could (or should) break apart the replacement shafts, you should probably just use the whole unit.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can replace the halfshafts with the jack shaft attached. There's just not enough clearance on the lower A-arm to green cup.

[nfpgasmask]

Unfortunately, I don't think you can replace the halfshafts with the jack shaft attached. There's just not enough clearance on the lower A-arm to green cup.

Yeah, when I wrote that, I didn't realize Mark had the whole unit green cup included. I thought they were just the half shafts, and I have only heard from folks that you can do it without removing the knuckle. I always remove the knuckle and replace as much as I can when I am in there.

And Mark, VXorado is right, do the inner seals if you do decide to drop the front axle. This is the only reason I dropped my front axle to begin with, because both seals were leaking.

Oddly enough, I have never had these seals leak on any of my Troopers, but my VX was leaking there pretty good.

Bart

[MSHardeman]

OK, so should I just leave the axle housing in place, with the stock axles installed, and just break down the new SurTrack axles and install the half shafts? It sounds like getting the axle housing back into place with the complete axle assemblies installed is going to be tough if not impossible (without having to replace a bunch of other stuff).

I'm close to a NAPA so I can walk over and get some extra CV grease as well as a Some CV boot clamps and tool.

I originally thought that I would need to replace the whole axle because a couple of years ago my driver side inner boot split and I didn't realize it for a while. The green cup ended up getting pitted and scarred. The shop I took it to removed the axle and sent it to a shop to have the pits welded up and then had the whole green cup re machined to spec. When the CVs started clacking I assumed that it was the green cup repair finally giving up, but when I des assembled the driver side half shaft all kinds of rusty water started leaking out of the outer CV boot so now I am guessing that that joint is the problem. So now maybe just replacing the half shaft is the way to go. Might as well replace the passenger side AND repack the front bearings while I'm at it. I have all of the seals to do the complete axle swap, but that might be more than I want to bite off right now. This IS my daily driver after all.

[nfpgasmask]

Yeah, that's a tough call, Mark. Dropping the axle is a pretty big job, imo.

Bart

[MSHardeman]

Argh. I may have spoken too soon. I cleaned out Vicki's green cup and it does look like there is some wear in it. I took apart an extra complete axle that I have to compare the two. First the spare axle green cup:


As far as I know the CV joint is good. The boot is in tact and it looks original.

Now Vicki's green cup:

If you look closely at the back of the cup you can see some marks on the ridges between the ball races. I don't know if that is enough to make me yank the whole axle though. Tea. Guess the only way to tell would be to leave the green cup, install the new half shaft and see if it clacks or not.

What do y'all think?

Luckily I am off of work this week so if I have to pull the whole axle housing I have the time. I'll just need to get new ball joints and new tie rod ends because they'll all need to come out to get the whole axle assembly out, disassembled, reassembled and reinstalled.

[MSHardeman]

It looks like, according to Tom (tom4bren) and Chris (Marlin) ( http://www.vehicross.info/forums/sho...threadid=24109 ) you can get the tie rods out of the steering knuckles by either using a pitman arm puller and/or giving the tie rid ends a good whack with a hammer.

I'm guessing that with the tie rods disconnected you could move the knuckles out of he way enough to put one end of the axle assembly up in place, then slide it all the way to that side to give toe enough room to get the other side up and in place. It all seems to make sense laying under the VX looking at it. You might need to disconnect the front drive shaft to allow the axle to move around enough, and you might need to turn the steering to one full lock to get the steering rod out of the way, but just maybe.....

[VXorado]

Well, if you can easily feel the worn "band" than you probably need to drop the diff. When mine were bad, I could feel the area that lost metal with my finger. I would think just a couple millimeters of play could cause the clicking and wear out you new CVs.

+1 for the pitman arm puller. It works really well for the tie rods and ball joints.

[PPinzino]

I have decided to order new shafts for my VX I purchased last week, the TOD system seems to function just fine but if I put it in 4LO they both will clack pretty loud...

[tom4bren]

Mark,

Those 'wear' spots don't look that bad to me. I think I'd just take the risk of putting the new components into the old green cup ... but that's just me.

Now this is from the dregs of my memory so ...

You only need to break your ball joints free if you're pulling the axles out of the diff housing. Also, you may not need to break them all free. There's a coupling that bolts to the frame with 4 bolts that are much easier to remove & will allow enough movement of the center link to allow for the axle housing to be dropped.

In order to remove the axles from the diff housing, you need to unbolt the differential brackets from the frame, then unbolt the brackets from the axle housing. That allows you to remove a clip ring that retains a bearing. Once that is removed, you can slide the axle out.

I also ran into a snag that when I dropped the axle housing, one of the green cups wouldn't clear the Lower Control arm. I ended up just grinding a little off of the LCA to allow clearance.

These 3 files are kinda the gospel for CV's & stuff.

[MSHardeman]

Tom, thanks for the info. I ended up talking to Jon (VXorado) yesterday on the phone and he said pretty much the same thing that you did. The wear marks don't look drastic enough to bother replacing the green cup, which means that I don't need to drop my front axle. I did look up the axle removal on my shop CD, and even though it doesn't look hard to do, it does get to be pretty involved. I thought that I would be able to unbolt the axle mounting brackets and wiggle things around enough to get the axle out (and then back in). Jon let me know that there really isn't enough room to do that and that you have to split the axle on the car (removing the passenger side axle) in order to get it out and that the process must be reversed to get the axle housing back in.

I was starting to get worried that the more I took out, the more chances I would have to mess the seals up. Since I don't have a leak at the axle seal right now, I sure didn't want to create one. I think I'm going to follow both or your advice and break the new SurTrack axles down and just install the half shafts in my existing green cups. If the clacking continues then I know what I need to do.

I do have one split boot on my passenger side lower ball joint so I'll replace that too, but now the job shouldn't take too long to get everything back together.

Thanks all for the information, suggestions and hand holding.

[nfpgasmask]

That's good if you can avoid dropping the axle. It is a pain in my book.

Bart

[MSHardeman]

OK, so I decided to leave the axle housing where it is and just replace the half shafts. Sorry to those who were looking for a complete front axle removal how/to, but the Workshop manual has a pretty good write up on it.

I have broken the SurTrack axles down now and separated the half shaft from the axle. My question now is; is it OK to mix grease? The inner CV joint has grease in it already, but I want to pack my existing green cup with grease to make up for the bit that was lost to the new green cup. Is it OK to just add the synthetic bearing grease that I have to the grease that is already there, or should I clean the new joint out completely and re-pack with one type of grease?

Thanks to all for the help so far. This should be done in the next day, or so, and you won't have to read about it any more.

[JAMAS]

This should be done in the next day, or so, and you won't have to read about it any more.

Its going to help someone else eventually. Keep on talking about it.