xxJDxx

Following the instructions in the service manaul i was able to remove the front drive shaft....with a lot of effort and prying, and basically destroying the old one in the process.

Now i can not, for the life of me, get the new one in there. there just isnt' enough room. Am I doing something wrong? the manual doesnt say to remove teh front wheel hub or steering knuckle so i assume it can be done without doing all that....

anyone have any tips??

also, is it ok to drive without the front left driveshaft installed?

akaphilly

hammer out the 6 bolts that hold it on. use a brass hammer or leave the nut on the end when u hit it. it will make things alot easier. you could drive it but oil will leak out most likely

peow130

You raise jack up the lower control arm to make it parallel with the diff-crossmember..
there should be a notch on the differential output flange too.
Slide the CV up through everything, then into the spindle/hub.
Note: Grease spindle so bushings don't chatter.
Once you get to the point where you've almost got the CV into it all the way, use the notch on the output flange as your friend.
The little wing-tab deal that has the bolt hole on the CV should go right through that notch, and you can get the CV all the way in. This is the hardest part, because you'll probably need two people.

Oh, and be sure to remove your front shock off the lower control arm so the CV boot can get past it.

xxJDxx

is this possible, it seemed like the bolts were welded on or something....i didn't think they coudl be removed

peow130

they're just pressed in studs.

smack em out, and replace with some grade-8 bolts.

akaphilly

just do it. i've done this a ton of times. i can chance a cv in a half hour without even lifting the truck or takin the wheel off.

scope103

I assume you're talking about one of the 1/2 shafts (from the front diff to a wheel), and not the front drive shaft (transfer case to the front diff).

I can't for the life of me believe that the Toyota engineers expected you to pound the hell out of the pressed-in studs just to replace a half-shaft.

Because you don't need to do anything like that. Peow120 knows the secret: you have to jack up the wheel so that the torsion bar is flexed just like the truck was sitting on the pavement. The half-shaft will slide in without any trouble. I didn't even need to remove the shock absorber.

(Some on this forum have needed to jack up the opposite rear wheel, just to get that little bit of extra compression on the torsion bar, to get the parallel line peow120 was talking about. I didn't need to, but now you know what you're looking for.)

Lots of folks on this forum will advise tearing out the studs, or removing the ball joints, or all manner of other disassembly. Do that if you like, but just doing it correctly is a whole lot easier (in my humble opinion).

(PS You can even remove it with no jack -- with the truck sitting on the ground it has the correct angle! There just isn't a whole lot of room under there to swing your torque wrench.)

xxJDxx

^Seems odd, i tried this. I foudn with the wheel jacked up parallel there was LESS room than with the suspension fully lowered. It was 'close' to going in with the suspension fully lowered, when i tried raising the suspension there was NO WAY it was going to fit.... it just wont clear the 6 bolts on the drive shaft....

If those bolts will come out it would be a super easy job as I had no problems getting everything else in place....

akaphilly

JUST TAKE THEM OUT AHHHHHH.. they are pressed on. when you retighten them they will go right back in place.. also take the shock off. or just give up.. im done helpin

xxJDxx

Got it done today, took me awhile to find a way to get enough force on the hammer to knock the bolts out, ended up using a looong punch...

Thanks for the help, only reason i took so long is that the first shaft i got had a small pinsized hole in one of the boots, so i had to wait for them to get another one in, and it was a holiday weekend in canada..

xxJDxx

errr....jus did some trail driving...there is a bad rattle over rough surfaces....

kinda sounds like sway bar, but the links are tightened up....