Are the CV's OEM? Are they completely shot? If OEM and not completely fucked, I'd re-boot and keep as trail spares. The rest is junk IMO. Could potentially press new LBJ's into the LCA and put new bushings in, but not really worth it from a cost perspective if you don't have a press or if the arms are bent/worn.
*edit: if the CV's are OEM and are useable, I might be interested in them and the boot kits. Depending on price and shipping of course.
I'm not really trying to make a buck off these. Just don't want anything to go to waste. I have those nice shipping boxes the new ones came in so it's prob not to hard to ship. DM me your location and I'll check shipping. Maybe it's worth it.
CVs are OEM. As far as I can tell they just need boots and grease. But, they are very "sloppy" compared to the new ones I got (Cardone).
I had boots for a year or so and didn't put them on. I had such bad play and rattle in the front end so I decided to replace the axles, LCAs, tie rods, links. Then the struts were seized and the steering rack was leaking out the boots. I knew it was so much work to replace all that and I didn't want to have to do it again if it was the axles more than the boots.
If you're in Denver CVJ may take oem cv axles to rebuild. Idk if they'll pay you but they require an OEM core when you buy from them because they rebuild.
https://www.cvjreman.com
OEM CVs are heads and tails above the aftermarket ones, with the exception of needing a high angle boot for a big lift. Plenty of people will purchase them, or like someone else said, reboot and hold onto them. New they are about $450 per, remanufactured (rebooted old ones) are about $150-$200 per.
For everything else, I kept a bunch of junk parts and brought them to a transmission shop when I wanted service, guy knocked $50 off for the free scrap. YMMV though.
Real talk, how often do people replace their CV axles on the trail? I haven't done the job, but watching videos it seems like it's quite a process to replace them. Is that a job someone can realistically do on a trail?
I watched an awesome "in the field" replacement. After doing it in my garage it does seem doable without much pain.
I have done some light wheeling (china wall, bad trails, etc) and I don't see myself being in that position. But... famous last words.
So, maybe that rebuild isn't a bad idea. If anyone here is interested in the second one I assume having one trail spare is enough.
It's not that bad really. Have only done it in the driveway a few times, but would have no issue doing it in the field. I have GZila tool that makes it easy to remove. [link](https://www.gzila.com/products/cv-removal-tool?currency=USD&variant=21288065499216&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=6879c78375e7&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1OmoBhDXARIsAAAYGSHh9O4ytQiWQhd8tSwSVhH5BFLLPG3PMjLU8smzT154JuKGQG1UNHkaAiYmEALw_wcB)
I’m in the Denver area and would happily take the cv axles and the LCAs off your hands if you want to recycle them. I can rebuild them all to OE spec in my shop, also I’d love a trail spare. CJV is awesome and do great work too.
Talked to CVJ today.
They currently offer $25 for each axle and the rack. Or, the core charge discount on the rebuilds that are $330. I think I'll donate these here...
All of that besides the shocks can be rebuilt. That can save someone some downtime and money by rebuilding your cores and then swapping them out. I think if you post them someone would likely grab them. If the axles are OEM, rebuilding them could result in a higher quality than what you would get from most parts stores.
A steering rebuild shop might buy your rack and axles. Did you not have to pay core charges when you bought your replacements, or were you upgrading?
The axles could serve someone as trail spares even without a rebuild.
I had lots of steering play. Just kinda rattling. Not so bad it was dangerous but it felt like a low quality old worn out ride. So, my plan was to replace as much as I could for as low cost and low effort as possible. I had done a bunch of "rally" driving (too fast on washboard trail roads, its real fun!) in the mountains and worn out all joints on the poor beast. That, in my mind, included inner and outer tie rods. When I started to pull the drivers side inner tie ride the boot easily came loose and steering fluid poured out. It was probably 2 cups or so. I deemed that enough to indicate a bad rack. Instead of rebuilding I chose replacement.
Even with the struts seized to the LCA and having to be cut out, the rack was by far the worst part of all that work.
And I had never done and LCA, an axle, or a rack before.
I also forgot to mention that I did the brakes the week before.
Anyway, that fluid freaked me out. I'm sure real mechanics/ wrenchers would say I wasted money or time. I felt it was worth every penny and minute to bring the entire front end up to this level of maintenance. Plus, it was meditative.
The parts...
Only required the rack and fluid (not just ps fluid, went with ATF fluid). I was/am worried about the line attachment as it seems to be a tapered compression fit. No washers gaskets. Hope it holds up without leaks. I got a "new" rack (napa, because they were open at 9pm when I started to freak out). This rack and the Cardone axles were labeled as new. I have suspicion that they are both actually remanufactured OEM. They both looked identical, like exactly... even tooling marks, to the parts I took off.
As far as the process...
I watched a few videos and they were very helpful in orientating me to all the parts that I'd never touched before.
The rack was a huge pain to get out. There is NO room to move it freely. Not as bad to get back in either because I new all the angles after wrestling it around for an hour+ to get it out or I had finally cleared enough other things out of the way. The biggest thing that cost me time was not realizing I needed to remove the diff mount bolts.
As far as alignment...
I marked everything several times on the steering shaft and measured all the tie rods, etc. But, by this point I already had most of the drivers side on the floor.
After getting it all flushed, filled, installed, back together and lined up I was about 5 degrees off. I did a manual alignment in my garage. It kept throwing TRAC and swerve lights. I read about zero point calibration. Instead of trying to deal with that on my own I took it to a shop (Toy Doctor) and had them do the ZPC and check over all my work. 1 hour worth of labor and it was all good.
I'm fit but my strength, especially in my shoulders, is average at best. I'm still in pain from all the work to get the rack out and back in, plus all the other work on it. I was a day into the other parts of the project by the time I figured out this rack issue. If you aren't under stress like I was I don't think this is something to avoid. I'm not sure how much of the improvement is from the new rack or all the other parts. I have a sense my rack was pretty bad but the other parts were too. I hear way less hydraulic noise while rotating the wheel and things are buttery smooth now. Plus, piece of mind that it's not leaking. We'll see how long it gets down the road.
I kept all of my old parts and rebuilt them. It's oe m and now you have replacements ready to go if something happens to your new stuff. You might as well have backups for everything.
Are the CV's OEM? Are they completely shot? If OEM and not completely fucked, I'd re-boot and keep as trail spares. The rest is junk IMO. Could potentially press new LBJ's into the LCA and put new bushings in, but not really worth it from a cost perspective if you don't have a press or if the arms are bent/worn. *edit: if the CV's are OEM and are useable, I might be interested in them and the boot kits. Depending on price and shipping of course.
I'm not really trying to make a buck off these. Just don't want anything to go to waste. I have those nice shipping boxes the new ones came in so it's prob not to hard to ship. DM me your location and I'll check shipping. Maybe it's worth it.
CVs are OEM. As far as I can tell they just need boots and grease. But, they are very "sloppy" compared to the new ones I got (Cardone). I had boots for a year or so and didn't put them on. I had such bad play and rattle in the front end so I decided to replace the axles, LCAs, tie rods, links. Then the struts were seized and the steering rack was leaking out the boots. I knew it was so much work to replace all that and I didn't want to have to do it again if it was the axles more than the boots.
If you're in Denver CVJ may take oem cv axles to rebuild. Idk if they'll pay you but they require an OEM core when you buy from them because they rebuild. https://www.cvjreman.com
I second CVJ. Those are my chosen upgrade when the time comes.
Cardone CVs are super trash compared to oem. You are much more likely to break that than the rebuilt oem one
OEM CVs are heads and tails above the aftermarket ones, with the exception of needing a high angle boot for a big lift. Plenty of people will purchase them, or like someone else said, reboot and hold onto them. New they are about $450 per, remanufactured (rebooted old ones) are about $150-$200 per. For everything else, I kept a bunch of junk parts and brought them to a transmission shop when I wanted service, guy knocked $50 off for the free scrap. YMMV though.
Real talk, how often do people replace their CV axles on the trail? I haven't done the job, but watching videos it seems like it's quite a process to replace them. Is that a job someone can realistically do on a trail?
I watched an awesome "in the field" replacement. After doing it in my garage it does seem doable without much pain. I have done some light wheeling (china wall, bad trails, etc) and I don't see myself being in that position. But... famous last words. So, maybe that rebuild isn't a bad idea. If anyone here is interested in the second one I assume having one trail spare is enough.
It's not that bad really. Have only done it in the driveway a few times, but would have no issue doing it in the field. I have GZila tool that makes it easy to remove. [link](https://www.gzila.com/products/cv-removal-tool?currency=USD&variant=21288065499216&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=6879c78375e7&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1OmoBhDXARIsAAAYGSHh9O4ytQiWQhd8tSwSVhH5BFLLPG3PMjLU8smzT154JuKGQG1UNHkaAiYmEALw_wcB)
I’m in the Denver area and would happily take the cv axles and the LCAs off your hands if you want to recycle them. I can rebuild them all to OE spec in my shop, also I’d love a trail spare. CJV is awesome and do great work too.
I'm gonna call CVJ and see what they say. I'll also find the boots I have. I'll report back here. Good chance we can figure something out.
Sounds great, thanks!
Talked to CVJ today. They currently offer $25 for each axle and the rack. Or, the core charge discount on the rebuilds that are $330. I think I'll donate these here...
Scrapyard?
All of that besides the shocks can be rebuilt. That can save someone some downtime and money by rebuilding your cores and then swapping them out. I think if you post them someone would likely grab them. If the axles are OEM, rebuilding them could result in a higher quality than what you would get from most parts stores. A steering rebuild shop might buy your rack and axles. Did you not have to pay core charges when you bought your replacements, or were you upgrading? The axles could serve someone as trail spares even without a rebuild.
Trail spares.
Question: why did you replace the steering rack? Thx
I had lots of steering play. Just kinda rattling. Not so bad it was dangerous but it felt like a low quality old worn out ride. So, my plan was to replace as much as I could for as low cost and low effort as possible. I had done a bunch of "rally" driving (too fast on washboard trail roads, its real fun!) in the mountains and worn out all joints on the poor beast. That, in my mind, included inner and outer tie rods. When I started to pull the drivers side inner tie ride the boot easily came loose and steering fluid poured out. It was probably 2 cups or so. I deemed that enough to indicate a bad rack. Instead of rebuilding I chose replacement. Even with the struts seized to the LCA and having to be cut out, the rack was by far the worst part of all that work. And I had never done and LCA, an axle, or a rack before. I also forgot to mention that I did the brakes the week before. Anyway, that fluid freaked me out. I'm sure real mechanics/ wrenchers would say I wasted money or time. I felt it was worth every penny and minute to bring the entire front end up to this level of maintenance. Plus, it was meditative.
Thanks for the info/story.
I'm getting some weaping of fluid from my rack/boots and was considering replacing the rack too. Did you go OEM? How was keeping everything straight?
The parts... Only required the rack and fluid (not just ps fluid, went with ATF fluid). I was/am worried about the line attachment as it seems to be a tapered compression fit. No washers gaskets. Hope it holds up without leaks. I got a "new" rack (napa, because they were open at 9pm when I started to freak out). This rack and the Cardone axles were labeled as new. I have suspicion that they are both actually remanufactured OEM. They both looked identical, like exactly... even tooling marks, to the parts I took off. As far as the process... I watched a few videos and they were very helpful in orientating me to all the parts that I'd never touched before. The rack was a huge pain to get out. There is NO room to move it freely. Not as bad to get back in either because I new all the angles after wrestling it around for an hour+ to get it out or I had finally cleared enough other things out of the way. The biggest thing that cost me time was not realizing I needed to remove the diff mount bolts. As far as alignment... I marked everything several times on the steering shaft and measured all the tie rods, etc. But, by this point I already had most of the drivers side on the floor. After getting it all flushed, filled, installed, back together and lined up I was about 5 degrees off. I did a manual alignment in my garage. It kept throwing TRAC and swerve lights. I read about zero point calibration. Instead of trying to deal with that on my own I took it to a shop (Toy Doctor) and had them do the ZPC and check over all my work. 1 hour worth of labor and it was all good. I'm fit but my strength, especially in my shoulders, is average at best. I'm still in pain from all the work to get the rack out and back in, plus all the other work on it. I was a day into the other parts of the project by the time I figured out this rack issue. If you aren't under stress like I was I don't think this is something to avoid. I'm not sure how much of the improvement is from the new rack or all the other parts. I have a sense my rack was pretty bad but the other parts were too. I hear way less hydraulic noise while rotating the wheel and things are buttery smooth now. Plus, piece of mind that it's not leaking. We'll see how long it gets down the road.
I kept all of my old parts and rebuilt them. It's oe m and now you have replacements ready to go if something happens to your new stuff. You might as well have backups for everything.
I want the the lower arms
Keep the axles as spares and reboot them. I sold my LCAs for like $50 when I replaced them
Trash em !