I recently had my 2001 LX470 on a rack and noticed my passenger inner CV boot is leaking grease. When I grab and wiggle the inner part of the CV axle where it meets the front differential I noticed there is a significant amount of up and down play, way more than the driver side. Is it possible this is due to the grease leaking out of the joint, a worn out axle, or should I be worried about internal damage to the front differential?
CV Axle Up and Down Play
- Thread starter 01BluLX
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Malleus
Far west of Siegen
Bottom line here is that you really need to remove the CV axle assemblies, both sides, and replace the boots. When you do that, you'll have all the time and opportunity you need to inspect the external splines on the inner half shafts and you'll know the definitive answer to your question then. Leaving CV axles leaking due to boot failures is a bad practice. Any contamination that gets into the bearings will damage them and that cannot be repaired; the CV axles will then have to be replaced.
Grease leaking out of the bearings, generally, will only affect the bearings themselves, at least until the half shaft assembly totally fails, and it sounds like yours hasn't.
Given the fact that the splined connection of the shaft to the differential is a round hole, it's unlikely that there is any damage to the spline making it oval. That's simply not possible in a rotating assembly. It's far more likely that the hole, in a rotating assembly, would become enlarged in every radial direction, not just two points 180° from each other.
As to your question about the difference between the two sides, you're comparing apples to oranges. The pasenger side half shaft is splined into the differential side gear, the driver's side, in contrast, is connected to the differential through an extension shaft. That shaft is supported by an outboard bearing within the support tube, so it's going to be significantly more rigid than the passenger side.
In order to evaluate whether your passenger side half shaft is moving within the differential side gear splines, you'd have to completely isolate the bearing and the outboard half shaft and its bearing. I'm not sure I could do this, on the truck, and I used to build and design axles for a major axle manufacturer.
The most telling symptom of spline failure, IMHO, would be driveline noise, and/or load transfer failure through the driveline, but I don't know that you could evaluate that directly, either.
Grease leaking out of the bearings, generally, will only affect the bearings themselves, at least until the half shaft assembly totally fails, and it sounds like yours hasn't.
Given the fact that the splined connection of the shaft to the differential is a round hole, it's unlikely that there is any damage to the spline making it oval. That's simply not possible in a rotating assembly. It's far more likely that the hole, in a rotating assembly, would become enlarged in every radial direction, not just two points 180° from each other.
As to your question about the difference between the two sides, you're comparing apples to oranges. The pasenger side half shaft is splined into the differential side gear, the driver's side, in contrast, is connected to the differential through an extension shaft. That shaft is supported by an outboard bearing within the support tube, so it's going to be significantly more rigid than the passenger side.
In order to evaluate whether your passenger side half shaft is moving within the differential side gear splines, you'd have to completely isolate the bearing and the outboard half shaft and its bearing. I'm not sure I could do this, on the truck, and I used to build and design axles for a major axle manufacturer.
The most telling symptom of spline failure, IMHO, would be driveline noise, and/or load transfer failure through the driveline, but I don't know that you could evaluate that directly, either.
Just reboot the CV. I've had to do it a couple times. You can get an inner cv boot kit for under 40 bucks iirc. You need some tools to do it yourself. Most shops don't want to reboot. They want to replace, and aftermarket axles are worse than junk.
As a 100 owner, you probably need to know how to do front bearings, brakes anyway, and when you do that job, popping out the CV is just like 1 more step.
As a 100 owner, you probably need to know how to do front bearings, brakes anyway, and when you do that job, popping out the CV is just like 1 more step.
Malleus
Far west of Siegen
FWIW, the boot kits come with both inner and outer boots, clamps and grease; you'll need one for both sides.
- Thread starter
- #5
Thought I’d update this thread and thanks for all the information. I ended up rebooting/greasing both axles with the OEM kit and all the play I was feeling has gone away. Just took each end apart, ran through the parts washer and reassembled with new boots and grease, pretty easy job.
