Do you think Toyota added a part like that for no reason?

Can you reuse your original snap ring?

 

I bought a Chinese outer joint for left hand side, noticed the retaining snap ring was thinner than original Toyota, put it all back together but now the outer joint does not retain. In fact if the whole assembly is turned perpendicular to the ground, I am sure the whole joint would slide off the splines! But I got to thinking, does it actually matter? It seems to me the only purpose of that retaining snap ring is to stop the joint from falling off onto the mechanic's foot or a concrete floor. Re the whole mechanical integrity of the axle, the snap ring in appears is not a part of that aspect - or have I got that all wrong?

Wrong. I remember South main auto at YouTube has a video on this. It will fail and potentially drag you down with it.

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Yes of course Toyota doesn't add things for no reason. But that does not mean it will not design a part solely for ease of mechanical servicing while not necessarily integral to the safe operation of the part.
Yes I have tried the original but after about an hour trying to fit the outer joint I relented and used the supplied snap ring.

Wrong. I remember South main auto at YouTube has a video on this. It will fail and potentially drag you down with it.

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Sorry I do have some difficulty with that, if you could explain how that happens when the axle is secured to the hub by a nut tightened to 200 ft pound which is further restricted by a split pin if by some miracle it gets loose. Meanwhile, I will search for that video. Thanks.

 

Yes you need that snap ring (or "circlip"), otherwise the outer joint can pull out when the inner plunge joint tries to move as the wheel travels up/down and the axle tries to extend to match.

I see that sometimes with aftermarket CV boot kits. And in that case I just reuse the factory circlip if I don't have one. If I didn't use genuine CV boot kits then those circlips are something that I would order from an online dealer.

 

Do I need to hammer this outer joint to get it past the snap ring? I tried this with the original snap ring, only to damage the splines. I can't see another way right now to do this. I suppose a trip to the breakers would be a back up if necessary. Better it seems used Toyota parts than Chinese junk which is made to fail

 

You should be able to pick up just the circlip from the dealer, or from a box of an aftermarket boot kit. An example of it is in the picture below. That little wire ring, right? There are two types of axles, Toyota/Aisin design and GKN design. The thickness varies, so that might be the problem you're having.

When you slide the outer joint assembly over it, the circlip should compress into the groove and then click/expand to hold the joint. If the splines somehow got in the way, I wonder if the circlip was damaged and therefore catching on the splines.

I never needed to hammer the joint, but place the axle shaft in the joint, hold the shaft and drop it with the joint down onto a block of wood. The force of gravity is enough to seat it, so it's not a lot of force. If you had to hammer and it still didn't seat, then something was wrong.

I like to recommend new aftermarket axles if the factory couldn't be rebuilt with genuine OE boots. They often come with lifetime warranty, so no need to swap joints and such. For example, Cardone USD$53.79 with lifetime warranty:

More Information for CARDONE 665038

The following is GKN design.

And this one Toyota/Aisin design:

 

Update: I pulled off the original snap ring only to discover the Toyota ring was visibly bigger than the replacement. But the original was bent out of shape due to how I removed it. I have learned a valuable lesson. If it's not broken I would now say don't replace it! (I had to buy a new ring from Toyota)

 

It's interesting that the Toyota clip has a different shape with a little extra bend to it; that bend acts as a spring to compress for insertion and then expand back up to provide a bit of a "stop" to keep the shaft in place.

 

Thanks for the update. Yeah, looks like the problem was the circlip was a little messed up that caused the problem. Not to mention the differences between GKN vs Toyota made axles. Glad that's resolved now!

 

The driverside axle can be pulled about all the way out the inside house so technically if your riding hard and flexing it could flex enough to pop out a bit and maybe cause problems without that clip you never know