After a request from Russell on our Advice Forum for information on replacing c.v. shafts I’ve decided to finally update the site with a tutorial on the subject. For those of you that have been readers for a while you will probably know that my back has been restricting my activity of late and new Autofix articles have been few and far between but thanks for sticking with us and I’ll do my best to keep the fresh content coming.

Ok, the first step when replacing c.v. shafts is to park the car on a flat hard surface with it either in gear or park and with the handbrake applied. Before jacking up the vehicle, unless you have access to a compressor and impact gun, we need to loosen the wheel nuts slightly and also remove the ‘hub nut’ or c.v. shaft nut.

The hub nuts typically need a socket of around 30-32 mm in size although there are some variations on this and it will pay to read this article through first to work out if you have all the tools required.

Typically these hub nuts are also very tight and may have a split pin fitted to the shaft (best removed with a set of side cutting pliers but don’t squeeze too hard!). If you have access to an impact gun you should be right but otherwise the minimum you will need is a 1/2 inch drive breaker bar and possibly a length of pipe that fits over the breaker bar handle. 

The next step is to either lock the steering wheel with the ignition lock (remove the keys and turn the steering wheel slightly in either direction and the steering wheel will lock) or have a helper hold the steering wheel straight while you undo the hub nut with the breaker bar.

Once you have the nut loose, wind it out until it is almost at the end of the shaft. Now we can check to see if the c.v. shaft spline is loose in the hub or whether it will require some persuasion to come out. Often times the shaft will be loose enough to move by hand and what we are looking for is a centimeter or two of movement in and out of the shaft in the hub. If the shaft is not moving by hand it is time to arm yourself with a punch and a hammer and start knocking the shaft through the hub.

What we don’t want to happen here is ‘mushrooming’ of the end of the shaft from hitting it with the punch and the hammer and that is the reason why we don’t completely remove the nut. Also a punch of smaller diameter than the shaft is important.

Once we have the shaft relatively loose in the hub it is time to jack up the car. There are two ways that we can attack this job. We can do one side at a time (if you are doing both shafts) and jack up the car as far as possible on the one side or we can drain the gearbox/transmission of oil before removing any of the shafts to avoid loosing fluid. On the majority of vehicles jacking up one side as far as possible is enough to stop any fluid from draining from the transmission once the shaft is removed however if you use this method it is a good idea to be prepared with a drain tray just in case. Obviously the methods for draining the transmission vary considerably between makes and models so check your owners manual for info on this if needed.

USE CHASSIS STANDS ONCE THE CAR IS JACKED UP AND DO NOT WORK ON THE CAR SUPPORTED BY THE JACK ALONE!!!

Now that we have the vehicle jacked up we can remove the road wheel. The next step is to remove the lower control arm from the hub assembly. With the case of our guinea pig Camry you can see from the pic below that it is a matter of releasing the ball joint from the hub assy. This can be achieved in two ways, the first is to ’shock’ the tapered stud of the ball joint from the hub or remove the three bolts securing the bottom of the ball joint to the control arm.

From my experience, removing the three bolts while being the easiest in theory can be a pain in the neck when it comes time for reassembly but if you are not comfortable swinging a block hammer around go the easiest way. Obviously there are many different variations to this setup, some vehicles such as early Laser’s and Mazda’s have a 14mm bolt and nut that has to be removed to allow the control arm to separate from the strut/hub assembly and although we can’t cover every setup here if you get stuck shoot an email to autofix@aapt.net.au and I’ll see what I can do for you.

Ok, back to the job at hand. The first thing to do is remove any split pins fitted and loosen the ball joint nut. Once again don’t completely remove the nut until after the hammer work is finished.

If the ball joint has not been separated for a while chances are it will take some doing to get things moving. The first thing to do is to arm yourself with a ‘block’ hammer like the one below. 

The next step is to give a few decent hits with the block hammer directly to the area where the tapered stud of the ball joint passes through the strut assembly (red arrow).

After a few decent hits it’s time to lever the control arm down to see if you have been successful at separating the ball joint.

It may take a few goes to get it done, but once the ball joint stud is separated from the hub we can completely remove the nut and lever the control arm down as far as possible and pull the strut/ hub assembly out and away from the ball joint stud.

The next step is to centre the steering and prepare to remove the c.v. shaft from the hub. The idea is to grab the brake caliper and pull the strut/hub assembly out with one hand and push on the c.v. shaft through the hub with the other.

 

Now we move on to the inner of the c.v. shaft. Before we proceed it is a good idea to remove any plastic covers that might get in the way when removing the shaft.

Next we need to lever the inner c.v. joint out from the transmission. Before removing the inner part of the shaft make a mental note of how far in the joint sits so that you know when the new shaft is all the way home. The shaft of the inner joint typically has a circlip that located the shaft into the differential and the shaft can often be difficult to remove for this reason. Also, care must be taken when levering on the case of the gearbox/transmission as they are predominantly alloy and very easily broken. If possible place the lever bar against a bolt or substantial part of the case to avoid breaking anything.

The best method I have found for removing the shafts from the transmission is to locate the lever bar and then hit the handle of the bar with the palm of your hand. This usually gives enough force to compress the circlip on the end of the shaft without giving too much force to make a mess of the transmission!

If the lever bar doesn’t locate one way, try turning it around and levering off another part of the shaft.

If the shaft refuses to budge and you are able to apply reasonable force to it, try rotating the shaft 180 degrees, levering again, rotating again etc etc. It may also be possible to lever the shaft from the top (i.e. in the engine bay) which may prove successful also.

Once the inner of the shaft is removed support the shaft at either end with your hands to avoid damaging the seal in the transmission and remove the shaft from the vehicle.

Fitting the new shaft is the reverse of these procedures with attention the following points -

• Ensure that the splines of the new shaft/s are of identical diameter and length of the old ones.
• When fitting the inner joint to the transmission be sure to support it as it goes in to avoid damaging the seal.
• Once the inner joint is located on the splines in the transmission (you may have to rotate the shaft until it ’seats’) use a slide hammer type action to drive the shaft all the way home. Pull back slightly on the shaft and then push the shaft in with a bit of force. Once it is home you should hear a solid ‘clunk’ and the joint should be held in the transmission quite firmly and be in the same position as the old one before it was levered out.
• Be sure to top up any transmission fluid lost.
• Ensure that the ‘hub nut’ is done up tight to avoid movement and wear of the splines.

Just one other thing that you may notice with some vehicles, on the drivers side it may have a shaft that is basically in two parts. This setup is used to avoid ‘torque steer’ when accelerating which is common where two different length shafts are used. As you can see from the pictures there is a bracket that is bolted to the block that houses a bearing and the inner joint of the shaft is located to the outside of this bracket.

The way to remove these is to remove the bolt and circlip shown in the picture and then either lever the shaft at the transmission end as normal or use a punch and hammer against the outer of the bearing housed in the ‘bracket’ to slide the shaft out.

I think that just about wraps it up, if you have any questions I can be contacted at autofix@aapt.net.au or alternatively you can leave a post on the Advice Forum.

Take Care.