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Casualty of the drive home

Dluvr22

PM 2014
PM 2013
Full Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2008
Messages
2,247
Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Folks I just got home but not without incident. Thankfully the Avalanche did make it home but I think I now have a damaged CV joint in my left front axle. I noticed a change in the ride quality as soon as I entered MN and it went downhill from there. The last 20 miles or so was done at 25Mph and the final turn from my exit off the highway was no more than 10 mph.

I also heard noises from the left rear tire as I turned in my driveway but don't see anything amiss there. I'll look for it when I wake up.  Guess I am not heading in the office as we are now down to one vehicle with both the Avy and the Audi out of commission.

51765548-6EC4-4FE6-89B4-355D8F7BFB36_zpsvsazdn6s.jpg


 
WHOA!  That stinks.  I hope it's not too major.  Guess it's a good thing you didn't bring your off road tires after all.  Good luck.
 
Well that sucks however with all of the mods that you have done I am sure that you can handle a little job like that!
 
That hurts, on a brighter note, at least you made home safe. Good luck!
 
Dang, sorry to see that, but like everyone has said, at least you are home.
 
Looked at it first thing this morning.  I have a tear in both the right outer and left inner cv joint boots. The right side is nowhere near as bad as the left. The left is done for. It's clicking real bad. Thankfully since axles are cheaper nowadays, I'm thinking of replacing both rather than trying the replace the boots. On the other hand, I'm also thinking it's time to look into heavy duty axles as an option.
Here's the right side.
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As for the noise in the rear, the culprit turned out to be this.
8FBFA99D-62FB-40CA-BBC5-C0E310F84CE8_zpsftypvp5g.jpg

Can I have a new stud put into the wheel hub or would I require a new hub at this point?
 
There was someone on here that posted a thread about the heavy duty CVs, but those things are wicked expensive, you're almost better off doing a solid axle replacement.
 
New CV half shafts on order.
Avalanche will be sitting it out for a few days.
As for the rear tire I notice a few shavings in the wheel itself and I am able to put a piece of cardboard between the rim and the plate the studs mount into.

I'm going to take the tire of tomorrow and investigate further however I am thinking that when I replace that broken stud, I'll ask that the two adjacent are replaced as well as I can only image what the extra stress they would have had to endure with the other one off.

In the mean time, I've been working on the Audi since my girlfriend is driving the Infiniti and leaving me car-less these days.
Unfortunately the mod bug bit hard.
Since I had to pull the grill off one bumper to put on the other, I decided I may as well paint it black.
Then I decided to work on the homelink that hasn't been working for a while. Finally since the tires were off as well to get the bumper swapped, I also decided to paint the calipers.

She loves the look at the moment but wanted me to paint some stuff purple to which I politely declined.

 
Dluvr22 said:
New CV half shafts on order.
Avalanche will be sitting it out for a few days.
As for the rear tire I notice a few shavings in the wheel itself and I am able to put a piece of cardboard between the rim and the plate the studs mount into.

I'm going to take the tire of tomorrow and investigate further however I am thinking that when I replace that broken stud, I'll ask that the two adjacent are replaced as well as I can only image what the extra stress they would have had to endure with the other one off.

In the mean time, I've been working on the Audi since my girlfriend is driving the Infiniti and leaving me car-less these days.
Unfortunately the mod bug bit hard.
Since I had to pull the grill off one bumper to put on the other, I decided I may as well paint it black.
Then I decided to work on the homelink that hasn't been working for a while. Finally since the tires were off as well to get the bumper swapped, I also decided to paint the calipers.

She loves the look at the moment but wanted me to paint some stuff purple to which I politely declined.


Don't you just hate it when you finally have no excuse to get some things done that have been put off for far too long?

Enjoy your rest.

Of course, there will be obligatory pictures required to show for what happened while your rig was out of action.
 
Hey Cat Dancer He Dluvr22 has a heck of a nice AV inside and outside. But I think it is modding over maintenance that damage did not happen over night.
 
Strangely enough I took my truck to my local Chevy dealership a few days before the trip for an oil change and a complimentary tire rotation and they did the usual safety check.

The only thing mentioned was that I had 3 bolts in the exhaust manifold that was broken (2 on the left and 1 on the right). I'm sure if my CV boos were cracked then, it would have been mentioned. As for the rear tire I can't speak to what's going on until I get it off.

I am just hoping for the best
 
Unless you lay your hands on each boot to check you can't see the torn boot in the pleat unless it is exposed with the wheel turned to either side. Sometimes depends on how thorough the tech is.
 
You mentioned you had complimentary tire rotation.  I wonder if the wheel was tightened with a "too powerful" impact wrench vs. a torque wrench.
 
raiderron said:
Unless you lay your hands on each boot to check you can't see the torn boot in the pleat unless it is exposed with the wheel turned to either side. Sometimes depends on how thorough the tech is.

the force applies to the greese when the wheel is spinning makes the greese come out of the smallest of holes. There would have been evidence of a tear just by seeing greese.
 
krazycarguy said:
the force applies to the greese when the wheel is spinning makes the greese come out of the smallest of holes. There would have been evidence of a tear just by seeing greese.





Agreed if the holes were there then. The holes could have happened on his trip to wherever and then started coming out as it heated up, thinned out and started to leak out the tears. Not making excuses but if the tears were not there when inspected then they would not have been seen. I do agree that if they were there then the tech should have seen the flinging grease.
 
Glad you didn't go offroading because then I'd be feeling guilty that it happened during our little excursion.
 
Took the passenger side half shaft off yesterday to inspect.
There wasn't a tear per say but where the boot is clamped to the axle had developed a little leak.
Unfortunately that was enough to fling a lot of grease.
Getting the halfshaft loose was the easy part.
Getting the steering linkage out of the way was a bear.
I got the nut off but everything else was stuck together.
I ended up using my dremel to cut it off eventually.
Now I've got to do the same thing on the driver's side and clean it all up before putting the replacements in.


Honestly it doesn't look as bad as I initially stated in the first post.
I think I was being paranoid after the long drive and started imagining the worst

I drove it down to my local car wash 2 days ago to get all the bugs off since I couldn't wait any longer for the halfshafts to come in and most of the noises I heard on my return trip was gone. I did also pull the rear tire off and I have another bent stud that I couldn't get the bolt back on to. Definately not driving anywhere until I can get the halfshafts put in and take it in to get those studs replaced.
 
Dluvr22 said:
Took the passenger side half shaft off yesterday to inspect.
There wasn't a tear per say but where the boot is clamped to the axle had developed a little leak.
Unfortunately that was enough to fling a lot of grease.

Not sure if you remember, but we talked briefly about this at the GTG, I had the the exact same problem, the drivers side was leaking from the clamp and I replaced it before the drive to Madison. The passenger side boot tore right at the clamp and was throwing grease the whole way there and the whole way home. (not quite as much as yours, but it still makes a wicked mess)
I got the passenger side done on Tuesday. Both joints actually looked fine and I could have probably just replaced the boots, but I replaced the entire shafts just to be safe.
 
LOL. And I was thinking now would be a good time to do your wheel LED mod.
Unfortunately the parts are not available so it means I'll be taking the wheels off again soon.
 
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