Continued front axle trouble

[Jobi-Wan Kenobi]

I had a post here a while back (like fall of 2022) about some trouble I was having doing some reassembly on my front axle after changing a shaft seal and needle bearing that mates to the drivers side CV shaft. Through some issues I ended up having to pretty much disassemble the entire thing before I could actually put it together.

Fast forward to now. I have some noise coming from what I am sure is the front axle along with some radial play on the drivers side output and a leaking shaft seal. Rather than take the thing apart again I'm thinking picking a unit from a salvage yard to just swap in. There's one here locally for $125 that has about 179000 miles. What I wonder though is how much wear does the axle assembly typically see since it likely spent most of its life disengaged? I can change the shaft seals and needle bearings beforehand and have it ready to swap in on a weekend. Is worth doing extra and even putting a rebuild kit in it?

 

[Jobi-Wan Kenobi]

This was the nightmare that I had.

Inner axle shaft fixin

So I had the leak on the my drivers front inner axle shaft to be fixed. When the CV shaft was bolted up to it the shaft did have a bit of radial play so I was thinking the bearing may have needed replacing too. I have the shaft out but can't see how to get the bearing out. Where would the play...

www.tahoeyukonforum.com

 

[Jobi-Wan Kenobi]

To a point I do wonder now if my dad and I caused something when we were trying to incorrectly reassemble things.

 

[Joseph Garcia]

I can't help you with your specific question, but I am now in the process of having both complete front drive shaft assemblies changed out. I have a leaky CV joint boot on one, and I figured that with 155,000 miles on them, it would be better to replace both completely.

 

[Mudsport96]

Well the driver side cv always spins, even when in 2wd. So any potential wear will happen there.

 

[Jobi-Wan Kenobi]

@Mudsport96 I'm not sure what you mean? Are you saying that because the drivers side shaft is splined into the differential and passenger side is disconnected by the actuator?

 

[Mudsport96]

Yes. The drivers side does not have a disconnect like the passenger side does. So it is always spinning. Therefore, if you were going to see a problem, it would show up there first.