Has anybody successfully replaced their CV Axle on their own?
I was changing my brake pads and noticed that there were clumps of grease everywhere? I looked around and found that the rubber boot had torn and spewed grease all over my brake caliper and strut. Before I found this out, I've noticed that sometimes when I turn slowly I can hear a audible "clunk" from somewhere under the car... Could this be a symptom? What should I do??

 

your axle is wayyyy past due to be changed... its not that serious of a job. A rebuilt axle is going to run about $75 with the core (your old one) returned.

Theres 2 parts of the axle change that may stump or slow you down. The first is the axle nut where the rotor sits... it may be a pain in the but to get off... and actually pulling the axle out of the transmission, just make sure you dont pry against the transmission as a co worker of mine had done on a Mazda Protoge and needless to say we had to pay for a new transmission.

 

I suggest replacing both asap. If one is bad, the other will soon follow. I speaka from experience.

 

I like to do as much work as I can on my own. I attempted this job and I had no problem with the axle nut on both sides. For whatever reason, I couldn't get the old cv joints out of the tranny (from both sides). A shop should not charge you any more than 2 hours labor to do the job. Others have had no problem doing this job. Just depends on how handy you are.

 

Thanks for the advice guys. Just curious though... why would I need to replace both axles if one is defective? I mean, how will the defective axle effect the non-defective one? Thanks again.

 

Preventive maintenance

 

I agree with the "Preventive maintenance" I had my drivers side broken 2 months ago, and I took to a mechaic to fix( didn't feel like doint it myself) 3 weeks later..... ta ram.....the passenger side riped open, I haven't fixed cuz I have no money....

 

Grab yourself a repair manual if you don't have one. I found it easiest to take off the axle nut by putting on your donut, lower the car enough so the donut is in contact with the pavement, then you can stick the socket in the center hole and go from there. Once its loose, you can jack the car back up and take off the donut and axle nut. My axle (driver side) put up a big fight by not wanting to come out of the tranny so i had to pry it out. It took me a lil while because I had to do it in a semi busy street and I didn't really have all the right tools so i had to improvise.

 

How much did you end up paying at the mechanics?

 

My driver side CV joint just took a sh_t on me about 2 days ago. I'm still waiting to receive my brand new Raxel's from Florida. That Marty guy over there is on the ball, top notch service. Before I made my purchase I did alittle reading about CV joints and even though a rebuilt half shaft will run around $75 bucks I think the extra $35 is well worth spending to have brand new (not rebuilt) CV joints. Nobody wants to go through the trouble of having to replace there CV joints sooner then they need to be. The reason I wanted to mention this is from my reading I learned that the housings where the bearings reside in the joint are case hardened. This means that when CV joints are rebuilt they need to be reground. Regrinding removes the protective coating & the rebuilt Cv joints will not have the life span of a "New" joint will. So my advise to anyone who is eventually gonna have to replace the Half shafts is think twice about purchasing rebuilt CV joints. In my mind I can only justify purchasing rebuilt CV joints if I'm in a big hurry to get my car back on the road or if there is some kind of emergency on a road trip or something of that nature.

 

Depending on how long you intend on keeping your car, you should wisely consider what axle you go for. OE axles cost about $600 (Canadian) for a complete axle, driver and passenger. They sell the outboard joints for about $300 (CDN).

Raxles does new component axles for $150 US.

Why should you go with either stock or Raxles? Because they start with new components, that are induction hardened, and not just regrinds. What's the indifference? With induction hardening, they use very strong alternating magnetic fields that actually cause enough heat to bring the metal to a "transformation range", where it is then quenched. Because of the nature of the process, it only works with ferrous metals. And typically works best with carbon and alloy steels.

Those rebuilds you can get for $100 US and less, are simply regrinds. Which is why they typically only last about 2 years before you get the same noises again, whether your boot rips or not. OE and Raxles' axles should last siginificantly longer because of this induction hardening.

Thus if you are planning on keeping the car for a while, I'd spend the extra $50 US or so and get Raxles, instead of just getting rebuilds from regrinds without induction hardening.

 

where can i buy it from? link please?

 

Are you serious? Did you even try to do a search for it? That's how I found them after hearing about them here.