A testament to Toyota Manufacturing - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

Blakeman · 02-15-2010, 09:44 AM

So I changed the CV shafts and suspension out on the front end of my 89 Camry Wagon this past weekend. We had knocking and had looked to find that the CV boot was completely gone on the driver side. Rather than just replace the boot we figured that it would be best to change the shafts as well.

After taking the driver side shaft off we looked to find that the cage that holds the ball bearings had long since lost all the bearings and was hanging on for dear life.

Mind you I probably drove it like this for about a week before we had the chance to change it. I don't know of many other cars with CVs so deteriorated that they even run, so the Camry gets some major bonus points from me for durability.

The old struts had nothing going on with them and it was basically the coil springs holding up the front end. Next weekend is probably my Kia timing belt job but the weekend after that will be the Camry's back struts time.

God bless friends with a warm garage and tools, they are worth their weight in gold.

hzt30 · 02-15-2010, 10:22 AM

I've heard that once you loose the grease in a CV joint, you have approximately 6 hours of driving before total failure.

Blakeman · 02-15-2010, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hzt30

I've heard that once you loose the grease in a CV joint, you have approximately 6 hours of driving before total failure.

In my case it was 6 days and still didn't fail.

Now it has two brand new ones and shouldn't fail for a very long time.

hzt30 · 02-15-2010, 01:19 PM

Are these OEM or after market shafts? Some of the after market parts are on the "shabby" side.

I replaced a shaft where the boot was split and lost all the grease. The replacement shaft (from autozone) started to make that clacking noise after 6 months.

Blakeman · 02-15-2010, 01:42 PM

That one was OEM I believe and the passenger side that we replaced as well was an aftermarket. I always believe if you are doing something to one side you might as well do it to the other.

Doctor J · 02-15-2010, 07:29 PM

My inner cv joint had no grease in it for 2 years about 11000mi. Someone who repacked the joint ran out of grease

Blakeman · 02-15-2010, 07:49 PM

Mine didn't even have the boot though...

Kingdom934 · 02-24-2010, 04:10 PM

I've been needed to do mines for the last 3 years. My camry isn't my primary car, but it's gone about 20K miles with a torn boots. Clicks on both sides and there's hardly any grease. I don't take my Camry driving when there's rain though, only dry weather. Gonna be doing both CV axles along with suspension soon.

Blakeman · 02-25-2010, 06:04 AM

When you do them make sure that when you put the CV axles in you line up the holes properly. They have three sets of two screws around them and a post between two of the sets but not the third, this corresponds with holes in the end of the shaft that help align it. We sat there for a good hour trying to figure it out only to look at the other shaft and finally see that there was a difference in the holes.

Luck to you!