Making 2WD For maintenance reasons

[Vinnybin]

Today is Saturday morning. The symptoms are the same as they were before. Popping in the front CV and some kind of gear in the front diff making change in a cup sound. The 2 wheels in the front won't engage. I've been reading allot about the CV joints and the diff problems. My plan it to drop the CV joints out and repack or refurbish them as needed which takes 7 to 10 days according to a different post. The diff problem could be a number of things but I won't know till I get in there, as another fella put it. Finding parts might take a while. Here's the kicker... My girlfriend wrecked her car and is using my daily driver and now VX is a daily driver, even though I don't think I'd really want to drive VX every day. That being said I'd like to remove the front two wheels drive system and still drive it to work for a couple weeks until I get all the parts I need. I have theories on methods to accomplish this but I'd rather ask the VX vets.

[Marlin]

Removing CVs doesn't take long. I can swap a CV joint start to finish in <1 hr. I did a write up on tools needed and how to somewhere on the forum...:)

[VXorado]

Maybe drop the entire diff, CVs, & front driveshaft? It will be a good day of work but you'll be able to inspect everything... halfshaft CVs, axle shafts, ring & pinion and driveshaft CVs. You always start the diff drop by pulling the halfshafts and you should be able to tell if that's the origin of your issue. If you don't see anything obvious, continue with the diff drop to inspect everything.

Like Marlin said, the halfshaft removal is pretty quick. It took me around 3.0 hrs for both the first time I replaced the halfshafts. The diff drop took around 4-5 hours (just to drop) on my first attempt.

[Vinnybin]

All sounds good. As far as where the CV shafts connect and ring and pinion goes, there should be holes and stuff where they all mount in so is there a problem with lube spilling out or dust getting in where its not supposed to?

[Marlin]

All sounds good. As far as where the CV shafts connect and ring and pinion goes, there should be holes and stuff where they all mount in so is there a problem with lube spilling out or dust getting in where its not supposed to?

If you are going to drop the diff, drain it first. Otherwise, you will make a mess. If you want to get the front end down without removing the steering linkage, it requires you to do some tilting of the axle assembly, better safe than sorry and find out you have a bad axle seal at the expense of a mess in your driveway as well as a smell that takes quite some time to get rid of. I have a special shirt I wear when messing with gear oil, still smells after 3 yrs.:)

Pulling the CVs alone doesn't expose anything, but you might wear some latex gloves, CV grease is nasty stuff too.

[Ldub]

THIS (http://www.vehicross.info/forums/showthread.php?t=21483&highlight=sponge)

:_wrench:.:smilewink.:thumbup:

[VXorado]

better safe than sorry and find out you have a bad axle seal at the expense of a mess in your driveway as well as a smell that takes quite some time to get rid of. I have a special shirt I wear when messing with gear oil, still smells after 3 yrs.:)


LMAO, I swapped 3rds three weeks ago and the garage still smells like gear oil... :_brickwal

[Vinnybin]

So I was browsing local you pulls looking for manual hubs and to do this I was looking for something telling me which aftermarket or stock parts would fit VX. In doing this I also stumbled on what I think is the problem with the popping front end. All this time I was confused because I believed the CV axles were the problem. The only gap in that logic was that the popping is not only in turn but full time and more so when dropped into 4L. To me this is the CV axle sliding into the hub as explained in this excellent article which my brain really needed to read. Is this theory correct? Is finding the ASINS or SUPERWINCH manual hubs the solution, along with replacing, most likely, the CV axles ground off splines?
http://www.planetisuzu.com/articles.htm?id=80&Hubs_Explained

[VXorado]

It's possible but I would still bet on CVs. When my CVs went bad, they made noise all the time and it was worse in 4low.

You can check the hubs very easily. Pull the hub & inspect the splines in the hub and on the half shaft.

[tom4bren]

Your CVs will explode long before the splines on the end of the shaft give out.