UTKtacoma

First of all, I drive a 98 Tacoma 4x4 automatic hubs. Anyway, today I notice lots of grease all over my passanger side front wheel well. I walk around to the front and the grease is ALL over everything. Its covering everything, and it seems to be the worst on the axles, on both sides. Im still learning about these things, so I dont know exactly what broke and what needs replaced. I hope someone can diagnose the problem with the poor description I gave, if not Ill try and narrow it down more. Let me know what I need to do. Thanks!

leebee

hey uk!

more than likely, youve torn either one or both cv boots. been doing any hard wheeling lately? check the boots just behind the wheels for rips or tears in the bellows then take a look at the ones closer to the diff. if you dont already have a hayes or chiltons manual, get one and read up on how to replace the boots.

lee

UTKtacoma

Havent dont any wheeling lately, but I installed some SAW coilovers over the summer and have been paranoid ever since about destroying my CV boots. Ill be amazed if that is the problem because I have had the coilovers on for maybe 8000 miles, and I expected the CV boots to last much longer than that. Im still going to check the boots for any rips or tears tomorrow. If that is the problem, is the solution as simple as replacing the CV boots? Because I have the coilovers, would high angle CV boots be a good idea? I read over on TTORA where the OEM CV boots were thought to be better by some, but they sound like a good idea, so I figured Id get other opinions. Would it be better to replace just the boots, or the entire axle? What is the cost of both? Thanks for the quick reply.

leebee

hey uk!

im not too familiar with the tacos, there are quite a few taco owners here that will be able to get you back on the trails. you can use the search feature at the top and type in something like cv boot repair for taco or similar. you will get lots of info!

lee

UTKtacoma

I did a lot of searching both before and after I posted this question, but nothing I have found is about my same question. I took a look at my truck a few minutes ago and have determiend that the grease is leaking from the boot furthest away from the wheel. Would this be referred to as the inner boot, and the one closest to the wheel the outer boot? Anyway, should I just replace the boot, or the whole axle assembly?

midiwall

Yeup, you've got inner & outer defined right.


Head to the dealer for a CV boot kit, it'll be about $40. The kit comes with a new inner & outer boot, clamps and grease. Doing the job the first time is about 2 hours. After that, it's about 20 minutes or less.

You'll have a couple of hard bolts to get out - the 4 holding in the lower ball joint are fun. Getting the axle out can be fun as well.

You won't need to replace the axle unless the CV's are trashed. I ran with a torn boot for about 6 weeks before I had the time to replace the boots, and the CV's still had grease on them, and things looked fine.

BIG NOTE: You will get two different kinds of grease with the boots. There _IS_ a difference and they need to go on the correct joints. This thread asked the question, and the answer is: "The outboard joint gets the Black grease. The inboard tulip joint gets the Yellow grease."

UTKtacoma

Thanks a lot guys, you have been a huge help. Neither boot looks to be in terrible condition, and judging by what you said Midiwall, it seems like it isnt as serious as I first thought. Any idea of how this could have happened in the first place? I havent wheeling in months and then all the sudden this happens. Anyway, I am fairly mechanically inclined, so would this be a good project for me to tackle, with the info ive gotten from here and with the help of my Haynes manual? This may be a stupid question, but how will I be able to tell if the CV's are trashed once I get them all apart. I assume it will be pretty obvious, I just want to get all my questions out of the way before I attempt to do this.

midiwall

Well, it's a situation who's severity changes with how much grease has been lost out of the boot. If the joint is dry, that's really bad. But, there's a LOT of grease in there, and it takes a lot to get it out.

When mine tore, it was a tear about 1" long that grew to about 1 1/2" by the time that I got to it. It threw a LOT of grease, and scared me pretty good. But, once I got to look at the joint, I saw that a lot of my worry was unfounded.

I don't meant to make you lackadaisical about it - it could be a LOT different for you.

Once I knew I had a tear, I stopped wheeling, and stopped hopping curbs at work.


It's hard to say... I'm pretty sure I know where mine happened (dropping hard on a stump on a trail). I think you'll be even more confused once you have a boot in your hand - it's not like they're made of paper.

Depending on where the tear is, then it may have just been a wear spot.

Actually, how much lift do you have? If it's more than 2"-2 1/2" then the pleats of the boot could be rubbing together and that can cause a tear.


I woudl think so, but once I got a factory manual I stopped looking at my Haynes.


This is a tricky one for me to answer, since I (and the other two guys helping out) were convinced that things looked great. But now I have this interesting front-end noise coming from the repaired side that might just turn out to be the CV.

But in general... Once you have the axle out and the boots off, you'll want to clean the old grease out as best you can. Figure on getting messy. Once the axle and joints are fairly clean, then look for scratches on the joints, and discoloration ("bluing" from excessive heat) on the joints or axle. Of course, if the joint falls apart in your hand, then that's bad.

One option here is to hit up a local parts yard (or the dealer) and buy a new axle. Figure about $60 from a yard, but try to get one that has a known mileage... Anyway, with a new axle you can just swap it in there on the fly and rebuild the other one later. It's never a bad idea to have a spare axle when you're out wheeling anyway.

KZN185W

iTrader: (1)

Hello Midi,

Where can one get a copy of the factory manual for the 3rd gen?
Thanks.

Happy New Year!!

midiwall

Oh Roy... what ye quests is that of the Holy Grail. As such, the search can be long - or will be expensive.



You can order one from the dealer, and I think they're charging about $120 or so. I camped out on eBay for many moons (about 9-10 months) waiting for something more reasonable. I got REALLY REALLY lucky and snagged one for $35. They usually go for about $80.

here's a compound search that should help you on eBay. It doesn't look like there's anything right now.

DO NOT NOT NOT be tempted to buy the "Factory Service Manual on CD!!!". They're junk. It's a slew of unindexed unsorted PDF files that you can't search through.

KZN185W

iTrader: (1)

Mark,

Thanks for the info. Appreciate it. I've been searching for it for so long....

Mad Chemist

UT,

First, ditto everything Mark said. Before you take anything apart, spend some time cleaning everything up and looking for tears in the boots. Unless I missed it, you didn't state how much lift you were running. If its in excess of 2.5", you could either be getting general leakage from the boots, or the fins on the boots have rubbed together and eventually worn through. Since you've been running the lift for a while, it seems unlikely that you've just got grease leaking from the edge of the boots, and probably have a tear someplace. The kits are pretty cheap (relatively speaking), and will take a couple hours to get the job done (though I question 20 minutes for a complete rebuild the second time around- a complete replacement on the other hand could be done that quickly).

UTKtacoma

Ive got my coilovers set at what I would guess to be around 2" - 2.5" of lift. Id like a little more height, but didnt want sacrifice ride quality and I didnt want to kill my CV's, ball joints, etc. Im goin to check for tears tomorrow, and with as much grease as I see has leaked out, I am guessing a torn boots have to be the problem. Is there anything specific I need to ask for at the dealer, or is it simply replacement CV boot kits? Thanks

midiwall

Nope. just "CV boot kit" and they'll know what you're talking about.

At 2-2.5" of lift, you "should" be fine, but you can tell if you should expect problems by noting if the pleats of the boots are touching one-another as you spin the wheel by hand.

And... yeah, 20 minutes is probably stretching it, but you'll get the idea after you do it once.

UTKtacoma

I have no idea when I will have the time to change my CV boots, so I called a shop to get a price estimate. Id be 1/4 of the way towards a SAS with the price they quoted me, so It looks like I will have to make time to do this myself. Anway, the guy I spoke to told me that when changing out the boots, its essential that you get all the air out of the boots or else they will blow again. I dont believe that any of the info I have read about this has said that. It makes sense, but is it true? If so, how do you go about doing that? I figure that when the grease is forced in, the air is forced out, but is there anything else that needs to be done?

Mad Chemist

Yeah, you sort of have to "burp" the boots before putting the clamps on. It could be possible to trap enough air inside that the pressure upon flexing could blow out a boot, since things are pretty air tight when you're done. There was a good write-up floating around that a few of us have used with success. I was initially a little scared about tackling this project, but its not too bad once you get into it.

UTKtacoma

Any idea where I can get a hold of that write up?

midiwall

This thread isn't bad... The diagram helps a lot:
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/cv-boot-write-up-34576/

A lot of the other CV Boot threads here point to this write-up:
http://www.keystonekrawlers.com/Mods...eplacement.htm


The biggest thing to remember is that there are two kinds of grease that come with the kit for a reason! The outter joint gets the Black grease, the inner joint gets the Yellow grease.

ARB4STUNNA

I have kind of a similar problem. I lifted the front about 2 1/2" 4 mos ago. I inspect it every so often and right after lifting it I noticed some axle grease had sprayed over some of the truck. I looked really good and dont see any tears at all. Could it jus be that the cv boots are streached a little tigher cus of the lift...allowing some of the grease to escape?? I clean it every so often, but it doesnt look like there are any tears at all??? anyone have the same results after a lift?? thanks