cv joint replacement

Put some pics of the procedure on here if you can.

I looked at the 2001 shop manual & there doesn't seem to be anything complicated about removing those bolts. They are just supposed to slide out when the nuts are removed.
My guess: there could be some corrosion or wear in the holes on the steering knuckle where the bolts fit. You could try knocking them out with a punch.

Thanks. I will try the old standby hammer and beating on it approach. Odd that they put a standard hex head on those bolts if they aren't designed to be turned.

I did take the hub on my first attempt. I just unplugged them from the harness without difficulty.

I tried taking the ball joint off as well, but again things didn't come apart. Perhaps I needed to beat on that!

That's a job I'd leave to a mechanic. There is too much disassembly that requires some specialized tools and expertise. If you damage the speed sensor in the hub, you'll need a new hub at about $150-200+, that's a couple of hours of labour that a mechanic would have charged you. What about torquing everything to spec?? Do you know what the torque specs are?? AND, do you have a good torque wrench??? Sometimes it's cheaper to take the car to a mechanic. I've gotten lazy in my old age to do things like oil changes and brake jobs so I pay a buddy to do them ($50-80/hour for labour, depending on which buddy does it) or just go to the stealer (mostly for oil changes).

I'll try again this weekend. If I succeed, I will let you know all of the details.

I have read the GM has re-designed the axle nut and this is why the torque is much lower than the more traditional numbers. Supposedly it has special threads designed to apply extremely even pressure.

Success!

How I did it.

Time: It took me 2 hours. It could probably be done in 90 minutes if you're good.

Tools I used:
1) 34 mm socket
2) 24mm socket? I think I didn't have that size and used a crescent
3) 19 mm deep socket
4) 15 mm socket
5) 13 mm socket
6) short 3/8 drive extender
7) 1/2 and 3/8 drive
8) 1/2 to 3/8 drive converter
9) hammer
10) large flat blade screwdriver
11) light
12) jack stands (2)
13) hydraulic jack
14) cordless drill with 3/8 drive adapter
15) crescent wrench
16) fan
17) stool
18) big piece of iron pipe (put over 1/2 drive socket as breaker bar. . . yes I know you aren't supposed to)
19) large clamp
20) heavy gauge wire or similar to hang break caliper
21) gloves
22) and duhhh. .. new cv half axle

How I did it:

Jack car up securely on jacks. Both front tires are off the ground and you do not put the jack on the lower control arm. With both wheels off the ground you can easily turn the wheels left and right to help with access to parts. Be sure the car is VERY stable. You will be pounding, pulling, pushing, and cursing as you do this job. Put on parking brake. This is of course helpful to keep the car on the jack stands but also keeps the transmission from turning when you loosen/tighten the axle nut.

Remove the hub cap. Side note here. If your hub caps rattle, wrap electric tape around the spring clips a few times and they fit tight and don't rattle.

Remove the axle nut. Here is where an impact wrench or breaker bar is helpful. I used 1/2 drive 34 mm socket and emeemmem yes a long iron pipe. This nut was a ***** to get off and put up a fight the whole way. I used lots of wd40 and went back and forth with it.

Remove the wheel. I used my 19mm deep socket 1/2 drive. I get it started then use the drill to get them off real fast.

Remove the break caliper. Forget which size socket. I think 15mm. Hang the caliper from the strut spring with the wire.

Remove the break rotor.

Remove the hub. I think it is the 13 mm. You need the short extender here. The nuts are on the back side of the steering knuckle and go outward into the hub. There are 3. You should unplug the wiring harness first. You could do the job without removing the hub from the steering knuckle but you would have to completely remove the steering knuckle (which you don't have to do if you remove the hub). This seemed easier to me.

Unhook the tie rod. I believe you need the 19mm deep socket here. A standard depth socket won't work. There is plenty of clearance for a regular wrench if you don't have a deep socket. Take the nut off and use the hammer to knock the tie rod out of the steering knuckle by pounding up on it until it pops out.

Unattach the steering knuckle from the strut. I didn't have this size socket and used a large crescent wrench. Lots of clearance here for any kind of wrench. I believe it is a 24mm nut. This is where I got hung up the first time. After you remove the two nuts, you need to pound out the bolts. When I say pound, I mean lots of really hard pounding. They are splined as mentioned by another post. Thank you for giving me the confidence to beat the thing to death.

Now the steering knuckle will swing far enough out of the way that you can get the axle shaft free of the steering knuckle.

The next tough job is getting the half shaft out of the transmission. There is a spring clip that keeps it on there and you just have to force it off. I went under the car and slipped a large screwdriver between the transmission and the inner CV joint and pried real hard until the thing popped off.

Now the old half axle (inner and outer cv joints) is removed.

Put your new half axle into the transmission side and you need to press very hard to get it to pop back over the spring clip.

Flex the other end until you get it through the hole in the steering knuckle.

Re-attach the steering knuckle to the strut. Here is where you need the clamp. The strut needs to be slightly compressed to get the bolt holes lined up.

Beat those darn splined bolts back into the strut and put the nuts back on. I needed to beat, tighten, beat, tighten, etc. until it was 100% back on.

Reattach the tie rod.

Put the hub back on and reconnect the wiring harness.

Put the rotor back on followed by the caliper.

Put the axle nut back on. I will let you decide what the proper torque is. My opinion here is that it isn't as critical as you might think. Since this car has sealed bearings, the axle nut just keeps the axle attached to the hub. It has nothing to do with bearing compression as in the old days. It also does not have any role in supporting the weight of the car.

Put the wheel and hub cap back on.

Get the car off the jacks, test drive, drink a beer.

The end.



Here are all of the tools I used.



If you wrap tape like this, the hub caps won't rattle.



Here you can see the bolt and the splines that held the steering knuckle and struts together.




This is how I jacked the car. Notice that after I get the car up and secure on jack stands, I put the hydraulic jack loosely in a spot that would help stop the car from crashing down should it come off the jack stands.



This is the where the cv half shaft used to slip into the transmission. You can just barely see the spring clip. It is about an 1/8 inch back from the leading edge of the post comming off the transmission in a groove cut out of the splines around the circumference. Transmission fluid leaks a little while the cv half shaft is off.



Here is how I set up the clamp to help get the steering knuckle lined back up with the strut. Notice below the clamp the new CV half shaft in place.



This is the old inner cv joint. The seal broke and when I was removing it it just popped apart here. You can see that there is no grease left in here. It is splattered all over the engine.



Here is the steering knuckle flipped to the side. You can see that it is unattached from the strut (just barely in pic at top right) and tie rod (tie rod not in pic but you can see at bottom left where its attachment point to steering knuckle is). You can see the unplugged wiring harness to the hub. It is still attached to the ball joint at the bottom of the pic. At this point I had not taken the hub off and was hoping not to. I was able to remove the old cv without taking the hub off because it broke apart in two pieces (basically the whole reason I was needing to do this job). I could not put the new fully assembled one in without either removing the hub or separating the ball joint. I had tried taking the ball joint apart but couldn't get it to separate. I could have beaten on it some more but decided instead to do something I had experience with and that was take the hub off.



Here is a more panaromic view with the half axle out. The strut is on the left and the tie rod is pushed off to the right. The transmission with its attachment point to the cv joint is seen in the middle. The control arm with a stabilizer attached to it are toward the bottom.

It just ocurred to me that you really shouldn't need a hub puller even if it is stuck. If you are replacing the cv anyway, just get a big hammer and pound it in. The CV axle "floats" in the hub. The axle nut holds the CV to the fully "slid in" position on the hub, but when the nut is not on, the CV has about an inch of play sliding in and out (unless it is stuck). A couple hits with a large hammer should knock it free. The CV axle has a slight taper on it where it will compression fit when fully engaged into the hub. It is likely that a little corrosion along that taper is what would make it stick.

You might ding the threads on the CV axle so I wouldn't do it this way if you were not planning on replacing the CV axle. If you only loosened the axle nut and didn't take it all the way off, then hit with the hammer, then finished taking the nut off, any dings to the threads would probably self correct, but maybe not.

I would leave the hub bolted on when hitting the axle to make sure it is stable minimizing risk of damaging a good hub.

Seems that using a blow torch on the hub would damage the speed sensor (no prob if it is the hub you are replacing). So I think the pound it out method is better for a bad CV. If it is the hub that is bad, and your CV is good, do it with the hub puller.

I worried about the allignment as well so I scored the position of the bolt/nut connecting the
steering knuckle to the strut. Turns out that it wasn't necessary. Those pieces fit together so tightly that there is no way for it to not go back together exactly in the same spot as it came apart. This must be GM's logic for the splines on the bolt.

And yes, I did put grease on the axle splines for just the reason you mentioned. It isn't high temp grease, though. I'll only know if it works if ever I need to take it apart again. Hopefully not.


Can you give detailed instructions on how to take the ball joint off? It does seem to me that that would be an easier route than taking it off the strut, though it could be a toss up. Certainly you could skip the brake/hub removal if you wanted to do the ball joint, control arm, and strut disassmbly. In that case the entire steering knuckle with all of its accessories would come off as a unit leaving a clear shot at the cv.

Thanks for the info. I looked at the photo of the part and see that it would produce quite a bit of leverage. Tapping with the hammer as I did wouldn't even come close to the amount of force that the ball joint separator would create.

To get the spindle to clear the CV on the Aurora you have to either separate the strut or the ball joint from the spindle. You also have to separate the tie rod in both situations. If you separate all three attachments, then you don't have to take the bearing off of the spindle. To get the ball joint separated you need special tools as discussed earlier in this thread, the strut only needs a big hammer.

First inclination would be to check around for other shops. Flat rate on the job should be under 2 hours. Buy your part from Rockauto and then review the writeups here. It's not hard, but you need some bigger tools than those that come in the standard Craftsman set....

34 MM socket.
Torx driver
Sledge hammer
Jack Stands
Torque Wrench
etc...

If you have those available or can borrow...it's not as difficult as it looks.

On that lower ball joint, I did it a little different. Since it does push against the axle you can use that to your advantage. If you slide a small nut or some washers in there you can pop it loose just by loosening the nut. The pressure presses against the axle and pops the ball joint right out.