Hey guys, I'm going to be replacing my driver's side CV axle on my '99, I'm trying to find out if there's anything I should be aware of going into this. Car is a 5-speed, with ABS, without the limited-slip differential.

Car has 108k on it, axle was replaced at 73k with a rebuilt, now the boots are leaking and I'm going to put in another rebuilt myself (last time I had a shop do it). I have a ~3-foot breaker bar, access to a large (~240 ft-lb) torque wrench, I've bought brass punches for getting the axle out of the hub, etc, but I don't know what else I should be aware of.

It doesn't *sound* that bad, from my Haynes manual, but that's usually how these things go I've change my rear pads and disks, do my tune-ups and oil changes, that sort of thing, so I think I can do this, but I want to make sure I'm not going to get in over my head and end up with a broken car

The boots are leaking, so I'm going to replace it anyhow, but the left-front wheel also makes kind of a tink-tink-tink noise when I'm driving, that seems to go away if I just touch the brakes, I'm not sure what's causing that, I'll be replacing the pads anyhow, as they're getting low. I don't know if bad wheel bearings could cause that noise?

Any tips, things to watch for, etc, would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

Since you don't have an air impact wrench, you will have to put on your spare tire on the drivers side so that you can loosen the axle nut. The center hole in the spare is large enough to accomodate an axle nut socket (36mm i believe). Other than that, it should be fairly straight-forward. Sucks that your rebuilt axle didn't really last that long. I would seriously consider a raxles rebuilt axle.

 

Thank you! I looked up their web page and ordered a Raxles axle today, they look to have a better product than the average axle at Consumer Auto Parts, etc. Hopefully this one will last longer. Make sure to mention that you heard about Raxles from Maxima.org, you'll get a special deal. They seem very helpful and friendly so far.