Tips on axle shaft / CV joint replacement work

[Jdub]

I have a few tips on various tasks related to R&R'ing the axle shafts in your SC. Hopefully useful to others as well.

= Removing troublesome circlip: You must remove all grease and grit using Gumout or equiv. prior to removing the circlip - much, much easier. Be sure to rotate the circlip in its axle channel to allow the cleaner to get to all areas of the axle channel to fully flush. Now, a spray/drop of penetrating fluid and open the circlip up, using a pivoting motion to move the top of the circlip away first. The analogy here is a reverse of how you throw a rope yoke over a horse's head - you want to remove the circlip as you'd remove that yoke, over the top and all else follows.

= When removing old CV joints, retain a CV joint ball hub - clean it up and lay it aside. This will be used when you build up your new axles in two ways. First, by sliding it onto each axle end you can determine which axle end has the most play and which has the least. This is helpful later when you are matching the new CV joints to their "new" axle ends: you want each one to go on snug and fit well, and you do not want to find yourself banging the last one on because you did not calculate the fit in advance. Use a Sharpie to mark ("rate") the axle ends 1 (easiest fit) to 4 (toughest fit). Then, take each new CV joint and slide them on your #1 axle end - mark the CVs 1 - 4 and, on assembly, match axle end #1 to CV joint #4; 2 -3; 3-2; and finally 4-1. The second use for the ball hub is to center up and push troublesome circlips into their channels. In this situation, the circlip is not yet seated. Slip the ball hub into the channels and it fits very nicely and provides the perfect surface to tap the circlip into the axle channel.

= CV joints use a total of 90gram / 3.2 oz. of grease. 2/3rds go into the boot, the last third is packed from the front. So make 4 scoops of grease, each 1oz. in size, on wax paper. Using one hand on the studs, slowly rotate and, with the 1oz. at the very end of your fingertips, gently push the grease into the center of the "bowl" as a potter would with their clay. Don't push it in - let the rotation pull the grease into a nice swirl sitting in the bottom of the bowl. Do the same for the axle flange at the differential end, using the opposite flange to rotate it. This will save you a WORLD of trouble re-cleaning grease from the gaskets and the threads (the threads must be surgically clean to torque correctly).

= Use a small stand to hold one end of the axle while you fit the other one (I always fit the wheel end first, diff end second). I use the Craftsman car stands and they have a nice little Y to drop the CV joint body on to.

= Circlips: Before you build up the axles, clip the circlip into cleaned slot of axle and move rotationally (slight pressure on circlip tool handle) to remove machining swarf of the stamped circlip. At this time, measure the distance from C to C of each circlip hole - this measurement should be the same once you have the circlip in place when you build up the axle. Finally, some folks ID the circlip stamped side (the side the machine stamped the circlip from). They do this to always lay the non-stamped side against the work.