Quick front cv axle replacement guide

[4.8isX5]

Posting this up for any members that need to replace ones on their car or will be in the future. Finished up my pass side one however drivers side should be mostly the same.

If you do not have a big ass impact gun read this- if not continue to next step. You will need to first remove your wheel, and hammer out the indentations on the nut holding the axle, throw your wheel on without center cap and get a big breaker bar and possible pipe extension to loosen the nut first.

Jack car up in the middle, throw 2 jackstands under the front on each side as having a floor jack is very beneficial for moving the rotor/knuckle assembly around.

Take 36mm 12 point socket and impact off the cv nut, if you have a very strong gun like mine you do not need to waste time hammering out the indentations.

Loosen both strut bolts, remove 10mm nut for height/auto light level sensor, (may not have one one if you have no air ride/adaptive lights.). Loosen lower control arm bolt (one by the subframe not the balljoint part on knuckle). Nut head is 18mm, bolt head 16mm.

Pop out brake line from strut assembly holder, remove 2 16mm caliper carrier bolts (not sure if 3.0/4.4 models are same bolt MM because the 4.8is has bigger brakes). Throw a zip tie around the caliper/carrier assembly and hang it from the brake line spot or manuever it to the other side where the stabilizer bar is. (Stabilizer bar side is ideal so it doesnt get in your way.

Manuever the floor jack under the rotor so it holds it, take out the strut bolts and lower control arm bolt, pop the outer cv from the hub (note- you may need to leave those on and are going to have a nice day with a torch, big hammer, and other items if the outer splines dont come out of the hub easily, luckily for mine it only took a few light wacks however on a e70 hub replacement i did we were there for quite a while with the big hammer and other tools what a PITA).

Moving on to popping the axle out from the diff side now, there is an access hole in the plate for a long flathead screwdriver and a hammer, the axle around this part has a place for the tip of the flathead to go. Once it pops out, you can now manuever your strut a bit and the knuckle assembly and you have enough room to slide it out, then put the new one in.

Now by holding the new one in (differential side) rotate it by hand till you feel it engages in the diff, you can then rotate it by hand and hear the diff working. You will need a 2nd person at this stage to hold the rest of the axle level and pushing on it (torward the diff) while you take a longer sturdy flathead and hammer, position it on the cutouts on the outside metal part of the axle and give it a few whacks to pop in past the c-clip (i always add a bit of grease here before putting the axle in) may not work on thhe first try, i take the axle pull it out a bit, re rotate and align it and then try again.

At this stage its pretty much everything in reverse order, get the outer cv into the hub enough to engage some threads on the nut, use the floorjack to align your knuckle assemb with the strut, pop those 2 bolts in, then the lower control arm bolt. Your caliper/carrier assembly can be left off for now.

You can tighten down strut bolt/nuts, use floorjack now to jack up the car by rotor to put tension on the assembly how it would be sitting on the ground, now tighten down your lower control arm bolt- make sure the sensor is aligned if you have one as it sits on this bolt. Connect the height sensor back to same spot and tighten down the 10mm nut.

You can release the floorjack after you tighten the lower control arm, now place your caliper carrier assembly back, tighten 2 16mm bolts, if you have a big ass impact at this stage you can hit the 36mm nut for the axle (i didnt bother tightening mine down with breaker bars as the gun is way strong enough. Then hammer back in the indentations on the new nut.

If you dont have a gun, tighten it as much as you can, put wheel on- no center cap, drop car on ground and use your breaker bar+ pipe to tighten it. Remove wheel if you need to again to get more room to hammer in the indentions. At this stage you are done, lower car, torque wheel nuts, go for a ride.

Any questions comment below, or if anyone reads through and notices something missing let me know as well... Job is still fresh in my head so easy to write this guide up.

[squidzilla]

I have a large air compressor and can go buy an impact gun. Do you mind telling me which one you have?

[4.8isX5]

I have this one 3/4" Air Impact Wrench cheap and good reviews, i dont have anything bad to say about it either as we use it for our semis from time to time too.

At this point im sure im not even using it to its max potentital, need to upgrade our air compressor.

For my other guns i have a dewalt cordless 18v 1/2 drive and a smaller 1/2 drive dewalt. These work super good as well, i have a few batteries for them and i use the bigger dewalt cordless for everything from wheel lugs, strut bolts, tierods, control arms etc. The smaller dewalt is good for tighter spots the big one doesnt fit or smaller bolts as to not tear them up.

The big air gun i rarely use on the car, mostly for things like the axle nut or ones the dewalt cant budge.

Small Dewalt- http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002VW...ogL&ref=plSrch

Big one- http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002VW...B0L&ref=plSrch

Had the cordless ones for a few years now and their use is almost every other day.

[jmitro]

Changed my leaking CV joint boots this weekend and this writeup summarizes it well.

I spent an hour and a half trying to get the stub axle out of the hub. Used penetrating oil, propane torch, and a BFH. Unfortunately screwed up the threads on the axle. Spent another hour trying to regrind the threads on the axle. So BE CAREFUL not to jack the axle threads!

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by jmitro

Changed my leaking CV joint boots this weekend and this writeup summarizes it well.

I spent an hour and a half trying to get the stub axle out of the hub.

As I've mentioned in another thread on this topic, if you are changing just the rubber boots and not the axle assembly itself, it's even easier to just pull the axle from the outer CV joint and not remove the CV joint from the hub. There's a couple of minor tricks to this and it's best done with a couple of sets of hands but it was hands down the easiest CV boot change I've ever done. I prefer to re-boot CV's on my workshop bench but not if I have to spend hours extracting an axle assembly.

That and I didn't have a 12-point 36mm socket on hand!

[David.X5]

My 1/2 inch Ingersoll-Rand air gun is stronger than that 3/4 inch Harbor freight gun. I bought it and was very disappointed in it.

I would always take a minute to hammer out the indentations on the nut. Otherwise you risk buggering up the threads. It's such a simple step, it's hardly worth the risk. The OE axles can be rebooted many times if you handle them carefully.

[4.8isX5]

Agreed with DavidX5, the threads is a possibilty if you are keeping the same axle and rebooting- on my old ones though the threads looked fine, i let my boots go for about 40-50k miles both inner and outer. In my case i opted to skip the dirty work now and replace it as a unit later.

The IR gun is probably more powerful from a quality tool maker like them, however at the price of the HF gun i cant complain about its capabilities, i got mine on sale cheaper then it is currently listed, $65-70 for me.

[blackbeast]

Thanks for writing this up man, subbed for later

[Ricky Bobby]

Also - Pat forgot to mention - don't cheap out - just buy GKN axles the first time if you are replacing the assemblies.

Do it right or do it twice.

[David.X5]

Want to second RB.

If you are replacing axles, "don't cheap out [period]. Buy GKN axles...