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While replacing the driver side shock and axle, my new axle popped out of the assembly on the differential side when the tie slipped off the upper control arm (freak accident). The axle is now lengthened, and pushing the driver hub assembly away from the upper arm and shock.
Inside the boot I can feel the large ball bearings have separated from the joint itself and are freely floating.
no matter what angle I turn the hub, I cannot separate the axle out of the hub. Banged on it to no success to separate the axle. What next steps should I take? Need some guidance here.
Last edited by Uranium238; 03-18-2023 at 10:24 PM.
I have that, it's for the upper control arm joint. What I somehow need to do is push each of those ball bearings in so the axle can 'shorten' allowing me to push the splined end out of the hub. Hope that makes sense...
That tool will push the end of the axle through the hub if it is stuck. You're saying that the inner CV joint came apart inside the boot and as a result the axle is so long now that it can't be pushed through the hub? If so, you need to remove the boot and get everything back in the right places and replace the boot. I've never had the inner boot off, but you can probably just remove the bands and slide the boot down the axle to get access. I'd line up some new bands since it may be hard to reuse the originals. It takes quite a bit of force the remove the joint from the axle. I had to put mine into a vise and break out the little sledge hammer (with a brass drift) to pop it off when I did an outer boot.
Pictures are worth a thousand words. You can see now that I just pushed out the axle from the hub, the threaded section is still binding. There is not enough movement still to push it out.
Note this is not a new Genuine Mercedes but a Cardone build. I bet there was a retainer clip for the bearing carrier missing during assembly. It literally popped out super easy when the hub swung on accident.
Last edited by Uranium238; 03-19-2023 at 01:08 AM.
Just separate the ball joint on the upper control arms. That you enable you to get more room. Doesn't look like you need much more clearance to get it out.
Thinking of removing the entire hub carrier assembly off the car. This involves removing
- Tie rod end nut
- lower ball joint mount on hub
- Brake caliper
That will give me all the room I need to pull out the stretched axle. That being said, will this affect alignment?
Yes it will affect alignment. But so will changing the shocks. You should get an alignment done after an suspension changes, as there will be some geometry changes. However, it's probably no worse than smashing into a pothole and not getting a realignment, or going off road.
Axle out earlier. It's all buttoned up now, pics below show progress on removal after separating tie rod and brake caliper.. I will do the axles when the replacement comes in next weekend for this defective one.
More likely it will not. The only thing adjustable there is toe. So just don't mess with the tie rod too much and you'll be good. But it would be a good idea to check the alignment if you have not do that in a while.
This is the second time you are working on this since March? How many miles did you put in that Cardone crap? Holy smokes it looks awful, that’s a lot of grease…Was the boot torn this last 3 months?
I’d be more curious about the AutohauzAZ part, my passenger side has a small leak of grease so I know I will be doing this sooner than later. Don’t care about the job, don’t care about the price, I’m more curious about how these different brands are holding up.
The replacement axle was received 2 weeks after the photos of the first axle failure. These Cardone axles pop out very easily and twist the boot up, causing grease to squeeze out and fly everywhere. Porsche 996 owners complain about the very same thing when taking their car to mechanics who replace the axles, who are likely also using Cardone.
Last edited by Uranium238; 06-28-2023 at 03:18 PM.
Weird. It's a weird miss. There just is not that much to CV axles; I find it hard to believe they systematically messed it up. No mention of this failure in Amazon reviews, either. I wonder what the full story is.
Got a call from my wife today, she is saying there is a knocking in the right front side of the car when driving straight. Not sure if that is CV related, or transfer case. I hope not the latter.
So the knocking noise is related to dead sway bar end links. It should be noted that if any of you do your air struts, do the links at the same time. They fail shortly after since they have probably maintained the same position for a very long time.
The Cardone crap is out of the car. I've got beef with RockAuto since they only want exchange it for a new crap one. You can see the joint at some point separated and twisted the boot, causing the grease to lube my suspension up like an adult film star.
As for the DSS axle, my first worry was the large diameter shaft would rub on the bottom of the shock "U" mount.
But that was not the case after reassembly and setting it back down on the ground. Nice to see the DSS axle does not have vibration like the Cardone. I still don't trust it since DSS is made in China...
Crazy. You touched on another thing that just doesn't make sense. I could see a low quality transaxle failing at 50k miles, not coming apart shortly after installation. This has to be a case of the subcon completely screwing up. I can't even imagine anything going wrong in the installation that would wreck a good transaxle; this is like "use the transaxle as a club against wild pigs" level of failure.
I am also mystified that the links have the failure rate they do. They just aren't under that much stress. I am wondering if insufficient torque on the nuts is the fault. I'm pretty sure this happened to me, by the way.
I have steering rack bushings on order. Found 1/8" play on the driver side. The rubber probably died due to an oil leak. Likely 80 percent of the noise I am hearing on a bump too.
new links, axles, struts and bushings will restore the ride.
03-18-2023, 10:11 PM
