New CV, diff drop, or more? (1 Viewer)

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Hey I noticed when parking at full lock, at a weird angle on a hill today that my Tire looked super weird, off camber a lot etc.

Anyway I looked inside and saw the CV looked like it was popping out, and there's also a leak or something.

Planning to replace the CV probably, but wondering if I should do a diff drop or something else. I'm on skinny 33s with a ironman foam cell 2" lift and UCAs. Have only wheeled hard once since I did the install a few months back. Alignment done at the time too.

Attached pics from the full tilt and then again after straightening back out.

 

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[Rednexus]

Your CV appears to be seeping some grease past the inner boot, which isn't abnormal. Also on a lifted rig, it's pretty normal to get the CV at some contorted/weird angles like that. The Toyota CVs are pretty good and can easily handle running at those angles.

I'm running the same lift as you (without a diff drop) and was going through CV boots every 6 months or so with NAPA/Cardone reman Toyota axles. I finally rebooted both axles with the All-Pro high-angle boot kit last year and they are still running strong. Still, you should expect to end up replacing CV boots due to tearing every few years so on a lifted Toyota. It's really a pretty easy job (maybe 1 hour per side) to do. The actual CV axles themselves (if they are OEM Toyota axles and not parts store Chinese axles) rarely need more than a reboot with grease.

Regarding the diff drop, I would strongly recommend against it. This is because you lose a full inch of ground clearance, and the drop can cause serious damage to the frame crossmember or the mounts that hold the front axle housing to the frame under some conditions off-road (there are reports of this occurring on the Tacoma forums - and it isn't pretty). The CV boots are easy/cheap enough to replace that IMO it's not worth doing a diff drop.

 

[bookpage]

Your CV appears to be seeping some grease past the inner boot, which isn't abnormal. Also on a lifted rig, it's pretty normal to get the CV at some contorted/weird angles like that. The Toyota CVs are pretty good and can easily handle running at those angles.

I'm running the same lift as you (without a diff drop) and was going through CV boots every 6 months or so with NAPA/Cardone reman Toyota axles. I finally rebooted both axles with the All-Pro high-angle boot kit last year and they are still running strong. Still, you should expect to end up replacing CV boots due to tearing every few years so on a lifted Toyota. It's really a pretty easy job (maybe 1 hour per side) to do. The actual CV axles themselves (if they are OEM Toyota axles and not parts store Chinese axles) rarely need more than a reboot with grease.

Regarding the diff drop, I would strongly recommend against it. This is because you lose a full inch of ground clearance, and the drop can cause serious damage to the frame crossmember or the mounts that hold the front axle housing to the frame under some conditions off-road (there are reports of this occurring on the Tacoma forums - and it isn't pretty). The CV boots are easy/cheap enough to replace that IMO it's not worth doing a diff drop.

Hey Rednexus, thanks for the detailed reply. I actually had a Tacoma before this and had the same thing happen after I lifted it. I just replaced it with a cheap AutoZone Chinese CV, but was pretty terrified of trying to properly wheel with that thing.

I think I'll take your advice and just roll up the sleeves and figure out rebooting it, since I want to stick with OEM, but obviously don't wanna pay $600 or whatever for a brand new axle every year.

Ill skip the diff drop too, from my limited research I only found a dobinsons kit and they mentioned it may or may not play well with aftermarket skids, of which I'm running an RCI one.

Also, I locked the wheel the other direction when I got home today, and the other side looks just as bad re: the awkward angles. I guess I'll just get used to it...

 

[Rednexus]

Yeah, that looks totally normal for one of these with a lift. Your CV boots are actually in pretty good shape too. They may be OEM boots which are better quality than even the HD thermoplastic boots that come with a NAPA/Cardone reman CV axle. I'd order a set of the All-Pro boots so they are ready to go when you do rip one (note that link I sent is for a GX470 - if you have a GX460 you'll need to order the 2010+ 4Runner kit instead). The inner boot usually rips prior to the outer boot too. If you wanted to do a patch job for the outer boot where it is seeping, you can remove the clamp by popping it off with a screwdriver and install a normal worm gear hose clamp in it's place to keep it from seeping any more grease.

When you do re-boot it makes the job much easier to have a real 1/2 inch drive impact driver, a 1/2 drive inch torque wrench, and a slide hammer. The impact driver and torque wrench will come in handy for lots of other things (like rotating tires) and the slide hammer makes it much easier to pull out the CV joint from the front differential. The 35 mm axle nut gets torqued to something like 232 ft/lbs and the lower ball joint to steering knuckle joints are 167 ft/lbs, so it's much easier to get them off with the impact and then torqued most of the way down with the impact prior to finishing them off to spec with the torque wrench. It's really a pretty simple job once you do it once, and there are lots of YouTube videos on it. It would also be ~1 hour of labor per side if you wanted a shop to do it, so a pretty inexpensive job.