- Aug 25, 2012
- 955
Okay so lets see if anyone here can shed some light on this. Today me and my Dad both replaced his front passenger CV Half Shaft out of his 97 Tahoe. This is the 3rd replacement we are putting in on the passenger side. The first one was the OEM one that had a hole in the boot from when we cut off the sway bar links. The second one was an aftermarket from advance auto and it worked fine until out of nowhere the outer bearing race was moaning loudly so we replaced it with another aftermarket one from advance auto which was different. The difference from the first replacement to the second replacement is that the second replacement has the little teeth that you use for an ABS sensor (idk what they are actually called but its the little notches at the outer part of the CV Shaft that are magnetic and the ABS sensor reads the magnetic pulses on to see if the wheels are spinning at the same rate or not) That one went in and everything was fine until a few days ago my dad noticed that out of nowhere the outer boot was twisted and crushed in on itself and had a small tear on it. Since it was under warranty we replaced it and the third replacement had the same ABS teeth on the outer part of the CV Shaft.
Well today when we were taking it out after it was replaced when you hit a hard pot hole in the road, slam on the brakes when going forward or you take a sharp left turn you will hear a clunking and rubbing noise and feel it vibrate in the floor. We took it home and looked and sure enough the outermost part of the ABS ring has rub marks on it and it is extremely close to the lower ball joint. My question is this, I can only see online that old reman CV shafts for this truck do not have that ABS ring on them so its definitely a new feature they added to probably apply to more lines of vehicles. But with how the lower ball joint is extremely close to the ABS ring should it be that way? Also the lower ball joint has almost like a dome where you normally would have to remove the retaining ring that keeps the lower ball joint in place. Is that normal or just a huge build up of rust? Another thing that concerns me is that when my dad was under the truck after our test ride I was rocking the truck from side to side and he noticed some play in the CV shafts outermost portion where that ABS ring resides and it was actually coming into contact with the lower ball joint. I always thought that it should be stationary in its position there and that the only parts to move were where the rubber boots are. We torqued the axle nut down to 165ft lbs just like the manufacture specs are from GM. We also checked the sway bar link we cut off in order to get the CV shaft out and it is torqued to spec and does not have any play. Any ideas on what to do? I really do not want to have to take that stupid shaft off again as it is a pain to get the damn sway bar link off the SOB and all I keep seeing are ones that have the ABS wheel on them. Sorry for the long post guys, just want to describe it as well as I can for all of you. PLEASE HELP, lol.
Here is a picture of the CV shaft that is on it now that has that abs ring: http://www.rockauto.com/getimage/getimage.php?imagekey=10127&imageurl=http%3A//my.cardone.com/Imagesftp/60/601050-01.jpg
And here is a picture of the CV shaft that was OEM as well as the first replacement without the ABS ring: http://www.rockauto.com/getimage/getimage.php?imagekey=2978229&imageurl=http%3A//www.rockauto.com/info/EMPI/80-1503.jpg
Well today when we were taking it out after it was replaced when you hit a hard pot hole in the road, slam on the brakes when going forward or you take a sharp left turn you will hear a clunking and rubbing noise and feel it vibrate in the floor. We took it home and looked and sure enough the outermost part of the ABS ring has rub marks on it and it is extremely close to the lower ball joint. My question is this, I can only see online that old reman CV shafts for this truck do not have that ABS ring on them so its definitely a new feature they added to probably apply to more lines of vehicles. But with how the lower ball joint is extremely close to the ABS ring should it be that way? Also the lower ball joint has almost like a dome where you normally would have to remove the retaining ring that keeps the lower ball joint in place. Is that normal or just a huge build up of rust? Another thing that concerns me is that when my dad was under the truck after our test ride I was rocking the truck from side to side and he noticed some play in the CV shafts outermost portion where that ABS ring resides and it was actually coming into contact with the lower ball joint. I always thought that it should be stationary in its position there and that the only parts to move were where the rubber boots are. We torqued the axle nut down to 165ft lbs just like the manufacture specs are from GM. We also checked the sway bar link we cut off in order to get the CV shaft out and it is torqued to spec and does not have any play. Any ideas on what to do? I really do not want to have to take that stupid shaft off again as it is a pain to get the damn sway bar link off the SOB and all I keep seeing are ones that have the ABS wheel on them. Sorry for the long post guys, just want to describe it as well as I can for all of you. PLEASE HELP, lol.
Here is a picture of the CV shaft that is on it now that has that abs ring: http://www.rockauto.com/getimage/getimage.php?imagekey=10127&imageurl=http%3A//my.cardone.com/Imagesftp/60/601050-01.jpg
And here is a picture of the CV shaft that was OEM as well as the first replacement without the ABS ring: http://www.rockauto.com/getimage/getimage.php?imagekey=2978229&imageurl=http%3A//www.rockauto.com/info/EMPI/80-1503.jpg