I believe I have a CV going bad on the passenger side of my '91 SE (5 speed). Pops and grinds when turning left and last night things got a little hairy (started pulling hard to the right) when it started to bind up on me on the freeway. At first it was only doing this under acceleration, but finally got to the point where it was grinding,popping, and trying to pull me off the road to the right. I limped it into a parking lot not far from my home..put the car into reverse, turned the steering wheel while backing into the parking spot and heard another pop. I pulled forward a couple feet and realised I must have popped something in the CV or tranny back into place? I then proceeded to slowly limp the car home (about 3 miles).

Do the above mentioned symptoms sound like a CV gone bad to you guys or could it be tranny/differential related? How nasty of a DIY job is it to swap out halfshafts?

 

http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBr...3d801f558b.jsp

 

It definitely sounds like you have a bad half-shaft or half-shafts on your car. Look underneath your car at the CV boots on your half-shafts and if the are torn or have a cut in them, then they are probably the culprit of your problem. If the sound is only coming from the passenger side I would definitely replace the passenger side half-shaft. If the boot is torn on the drivers side but it is not making any noise I would still plan on replacing that half-shaft also sometime in the near future.

I found that the passenger side is more difficult then the drivers side, but it is not that tough to do. If you’ve worked on cars before and you are somewhat mechanical, you should be able to handle it. I replaced the passenger and drivers side half-shafts on my old 90 GXE and my current 94 SE.

There is a support bracket about half way between the spindle and the transmission, since the passenger side half-shaft is so much longer. The half-shaft has a support bearing there that is bolted to a support bracket coming off the car with 3 bolts. In my previous 2 experiences even after the 3 bolts from the support bearing/bracket are removed the support bearing and bracket would not separate because the support bearing and bracket have rusted together into one piece. I had to take a chisel and thoroughly break away the bond created by the rust. This was the most time consuming portion of the job. The access to the support bracket/bearing is pretty tight and there isn't much room to swing a hammer especially if your laying on your back underneath the car.

You can see some pictures of the support bearing/bracket in the link in the previous post, it is shown in Fig.11 and mentioned in instruction # 6 & 7. I would definitely recommend putting lots of anti-seize on the new support bearing/bracket and the 3 bolts upon installation like the instructions recommend. Also I would throughly lubricate the 3 bolts on the support bearing/bracket and the 3 nuts that hold the ball joint to the lower control arm at least 24 hours in advance of removing the half-shaft. It should help them break free easier since they will probably be corroded. I used Kroil to lubricate them, but if you only have wd-40 or something similar that should do.

Before you even jack the car up you will need to take a 36mm socket and break the axle nut loose. I would put your car in gear and put the parking break on and try your best to break the axle nut loose before the tire is even removed or the car is jacked up. You may end up having to use a cheater bar to break the torque. You may also need someone to stand on the brake in your car why your trying to break the nut loose.

It would also probably be a good idea to replace your axle seal on the transmission since it will only take another 5-10 minutes and it may already be leaking anyways.

I didn’t drain my transmission fluid before starting the job. I just put a drain pan underneath where the axle goes into the transmission. But that is your call on how you want to do that.

I bought a remanufactured/rebuilt half-shaft from Napa auto parts for about $90 after returning the core. It is supposed to have a lifetime warranty on it. They had to order it since it was for a manual transmission with ABS and a limited skip differential. It arrived a few days later. But just a heads up, when I went to install it the rebuilt half-shaft didn't have a dynamic damper on it. I questioned the clerk at Napa and he said that issue had been brought up in the past and that is just the way some of the rebuilt half-shafts are. I haven't noticed a difference without it. I believe the dynamic damper is only on half-shafts for a 5spd transmission (which my SE was) but yours may or may not have one.

 

It was a bad passenger side half-shaft and it wasnt too terrible getting it out. The most difficult part was removing the support bearing like you mentioned. I have a new half-shaft on order..should be at Advanced Auto tomorrow morning.

My next question is about the oil that ran out of the transaxle. Was that engine oil? It didnt smell like a gear oil. If it is engine oil..i imagine you fill it through the crankcase then,correct? Or is there a transaxle fill port I'm missing?

Also..did you have any trouble re-attatching the ball joint to the spindle. It looks as if the strut is dring the ball joint down and away from the spindle. Will I need some sort of clamp/press to get the ball joint back onto the spindle bracket?

 

Check this out. IIRC, I used a jack to manipulate the ball joint back into position. Just be prudent. Lots of force from the suspension.

 

The fluid coming out should be gear oil and not engine oil. If it does look like engine oil it is probably a pretty good indication that the fluid is very dirty and could use changing.
I would recommend using a synthetic oil. The link above looked pretty detailed on the procedure. I switched my tranny over to Redline MT-90.

 

You are my hero

 

Are the CV shafts on the 89-91 the same as the 93-98?

 

the replacement procedure is basically the same on most cars, though the parts aren't

 

There are several different cv shafts for 3rd gen. maximas. The differences are have to do with the options on your car{i.e manual or automatic,anti lock brakes,etc.}

btw....3rd gen maximas are from 1989 thru 1994. 4th gens are from 1995 thru 1999.

 

A big thanks to all that shared their knowledge and helpful links. The half-shaft replacement was pretty straight-forward. The worst part was replacing the ball joint onto the spindle bracket. It was a mothafu@#%r!

I ended up going with an 80/90W Coastal brand gear oil for the transaxle. I picked up a gallon of it as well as a snazzy hose attatchment that you can turn on and off the flow of fluid with that made filling the transaxle case a breeze.

I took a look at the drivers-side half-shaft and the outer boot is cracked badly too...so guess what my project is for next weekend?..lol!


Thanks again guys.

 

f.y.i. - i wasnt separating the years by generations. Believe it or not, I know the generations of maximas (yay! I learned something on here!)
I was separating them that way since in thelink that I originally quoted, which walks you throuh replacing the CV shaft ..it said "1993-1998" (i never even mentioned 92 in my other post)
I was only questioning if they were the same because this guy is talking about a 1991, which I also own. but thanks for the info anyway. I was just curious if they all had the same parts, and if the process was the same, etc which internetautomar pretty much (and you) answered for me. thanks again

 

My daughter and I just did a brake job on her Maxima and noticed a ripped outer boot. It looked fairly clean inside. (Meaning no debri) Can we just replace the boot or would we be better off to just replace the axle? No noise at this point.

 

If the joint is still greasy on the inside and there's no dirt in it, then it's possible to clean it up and replace the boot.

On the other hand, the boots are about $20 each and special order from almost all the parts stores nowadays.. I think you can still get quality ones from NAPA, but that's about it. The regular stores like autozone and Oreilly's don't sell boots anymore.

The axles from the regualr parts stores are also of mediocre quality, but then again I usually get about 3 years out of an axle. almost all of them have simply had their new boots tear because of the crap quality of the replacement parts.

.................. If you can find quality boots for yours and your axles are still good, then I'd recommend rebuilding them yourself. they're fairly simple to take apart, clean, and rebuild but it's a pretty messy job.... If you do the job, replace both inner and outer boot. 90% of the time, the outer boot tears because it's the one that sees the most flex (steering and suspension movement) and road debris.

BUT.. in order to get the outer joint apart, you have to take apart the inner joint. So just replace both boots since you have to take the inner boot and joint assembly apart anyway.


If you can't find quality replacement boots, then get you a set of regular parts store axles w/ lifetime warranty, and just get good are replacing them. I have it down to about 20 minutes per side.

 

If the sound is only coming from the passenger side I would definitely replace the passenger side half-shaft. If the boot is torn on the drivers side but it is not making any noise I would still plan on replacing that half-shaft also sometime in the near future. ..........




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I just finished changing both of mine last week. This is the second time I have done this and the last set lasted eight years. As per usual it was ripped boots that spelled the end for the shafts. Initially I was going to just replace the driver's side but I wasn't able to get it out of the transmission. Reading the Nissan FSM it said to pull out the passenger side and knock the driver's side out with a screwdriver (carefully placed). It turned out to be a good thing because I saw there was also a small tear in the boot of the passenger side. I got my CV axles from Autozone which were about $50 each after core returns. For that price I'm not going to try and change the boots on an eight year old axle.

Autozone part numbers:

NO ABS - 7213 (drivers), 7254 (passenger)
W/ABS - 7263 (drivers), 7262 (passenger)

The biggest pains for me were removing the 36mm nut and punching out the driver's side through the transmission. Even with a large breaker bar I was not able to get the nut off and had to use the electric impact wrench my friend has. For the axle removal, getting the long screwdriver situated just right, along with getting enough hammer swing in the tight quarters, made it tough. I ended up putting one long screwdriver in the transmission and then a long socket extension butted up against it with my left hand keeping them together. Then I had the room I needed to give the end of the socket extension a good pop.

I found you do not need to remove the tie rod ball joint to do the job.

 

I've never had to pound an axle out from the pass side.
I just give them a good yank and they pop out, or I'll use a prybar against the tranny housing and voila.

 

I never had to remove the other side but the carrier bearing bracket was a nightmare to do in my driveway. I had to install everything back together except the carrier bearing bracket bolts and drive her around to separate the axle from the bracket. Never again in the driveway.

 

That's cause you live in rust country... a couple whacks with a hammer and a good tug usually get them apart here. then slather anti-sieze over all of the mating surfaces before you put it back together and it's not a problem next time.

 

Thing was it wasn't rusted at all, it was fused to the bracket. When I got my Max the passenger side control arm bushings were shot and the sway bar link was broken. I figured the abuse of the suspension/steering faults caused the carrier bearing to seize up in the bracket.