even after the cvboots were replaced, i am hearing the clicking noises when i turn – it looks like i need to replace the drive shafts. how involved is this if all i have r jackstands and simple tools? should i bring it to acura instead? (mechanics in the chicago area charge abt as much as dealers anyway)
anyone has experience with arlington acura in palatine, il to share?
I did it myself. The only real other tool you will need is either a serious breaker bar or a really good impact wrench. I broke a craftsman 24"long, 1/5" drive breaker bar trying to remover the axle nut. I ended up using my impact wrench with the air running at 100 psi and lots of oil to get it to finally break loose. My only other problem was pulling the shaft out of the transaxle. I actually just tore the axle apart so I could get 2 prybars in there to break it free. Even with those problems i had it done in 3 hours.
I just changed my cv half shaft
On Sunday I changed my CV half shaft. I called it the CV joint, and the guys at AutoZone said its called the CV half shaft. I think its the same part you’re talking about.
Anyways, it was my first time ever attempting something like this. I borrowed a bunch of my neighbor’s tools. Other than the typical array of socket wrenches, I used a 32mm socket with a 2 foot breaker bar, a small 2 jaw puller for the ball joint and a big 2 jaw puller. I used the big jaw puller to grab around the brake rotor and push the shaft out of the transaxle. It beats the hell out of trying to pound it out.
That’s about all that’s special that I used. It took a good 2 hours.
Hope that helps.
hi guys
thanks for sharing. quick question, how high did u jack the car up? i have a pair of 2ton jackstands from walmart, will they do or do i need to go higher? btw whats a jaw puller? hmm i think i’ll need that and the breakerbar.
I jacked my car up no higher than what I use to change the oil, of course a little higher might give you more working room. It all really depends on your preference.
Goto the URL below for the jaw puller.
I hope that works. Its a Craftsman 2 Jaw Large Gear Puller. That’s the puller I used to push the drive shaft from the knuckle instead of hammering it out. The one used for the ball joints basically look the same but are smaller.
i get a little queesy when i do smth on my car the first time, so pardon my endless list of questions.
i just checked with autozone and they wanted about $70 for a reman. a friend suggested raxles.com and they sell them for $109 a piece. i’d appreciate it if anyone has experiences with these (or others) to share. thanks!
AutoZone Reman
I’m running on AutoZone remans. They have lifetime warrantees so I figured I have some place to go if they fail. They work perfectly fine for me. But I’ve only put about 500 miles on them, so I guess I don’t have any room to talk.
removing axles is pretty easy here are a few tools that you will need:
32 mm socket: for the axle nuts.
17mm socket :for the lower ball joint and steering knuckle
pliers :for the ball joint cotter pins
Misc Metric sockets : for brake line bolts, caliper bolts Ect…
A pickle fork: to help seperate the ball joints with out damaging the threads
An impact driver with a phillips head bit :to remove the rotors
a piston compressor: to compress the brake caliper piston
anti seize compound :for the axle shaft splines (not required but if you ever have to remove them again you will be happy that you used it)
a pry bar : to pop the axles out of the tranny / half shaft
a large harmonic balancer puller (one large enough to fit on the wheel studs) :to push the axle out of the hub. it also helps touse a lot or wd40 or penitrating oil on the axle shaft splines.
A torque wrench: to put every thing back together to Honda specs.
New axle nuts: (honda recomends replacing them)
a hammer and punch: to bend the lip of the axle nut "out "to remove and “in” after installation.
And the most important a wire hanger: to hang the brake caliper from the upper control arm or spring so that the brake line does not get dammaged / over stressed. I have seen many people let the rotors hang from the brake lines (this is not a good thing)
If you don’t have the proper tools or experience you might be better off having a mechanic do the job for you.
I did it and posted pics on how to do it:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4291863601
You won’t have to remove your rotors at all, and you can rent the puller from autozone for free by just leaving a deposit that you get back when you return it. You can either use that pitman arm puller or the fork… We used the fork and it worked pretty good.
Those 2 ton jackstands should be just fine since our entire car doesn’t even weigh 2 tons, let alone just the front half spread across two 2-ton jackstands. We had ours lifted pretty high to make life easier
Good luck.
-Peter
K2bumper So a pickle fork will work to get the ball joints off… See my problem is that every where I look it says to remove the castle bolt holding the lower ball joints just keeps spinning. What can i do to get the halfshaft out?
Thanks for any help… Oh and when should I replace the bushings I believe ther are called. They are in the hole where the suspension fork goes
Hey man,
A lot cheaper if you do it yourself…it isnt even that difficult either. Me and my old man did it in about 2.5 hours. Its hard to explain how to do it but i recommend going and getting one of those complete teardown and rebuild manuals for the integras. Helped me alot
its pretty easy to do. the only hard part is removing that 32mm nut. what I do, since I don’t have a impact wrench, is loosen the nut a bit first BEFORE jacking up the car.
Most rims will have a center cap that will hind the 32mm nut. In which case you’ll have to jack up the car, remove the wheels, take out the center cap, put the wheels back on, and then remove the nut with a breaker bar.
or you can just jack up the front, take the wheels off, have someone start the car and step on the brake for ya.
a lot of times i’m doing this stuff myself so I never have help. the first method is assuming you’re doing this solo.
oh, and you only need to jack up the car as high as it takes to fit the jack stand underneath or until the wheels are off the ground.
one more thing.
if you don’t already have it. Make your life easier and buy a repair manual. helms are the best but chiltons are good too. I have them both and then some.
It was recommended to me that you buy a new transmission seal when you get the axle. The seal is apparently easy to damage and would cause a transmission oil leak which you might not detect until you get everything assembled and drive the car.