axle questions

[wo86]

Our sweet little tercel wagon (1986, 4wd,280k) is not doing so well. What I thought was a noisy CV joint on sharp turns has given way to constant noise and sloppy (read undriveable) steering. A couple friends have looked at it. They lifted the front end and found a lot of play in the CV joint and some play in both axle/transaxle joint. Is this play normal? We want to fix the axel, but before we do, the compression on all cylinders is 135. Is that way low? Or can we just drive it gently for another few years if we fix the axle problem? One suggestion was to replace the engine, transaxle and axle as a single unit/operation; which we will look into if the compression says this is warranted. The car is in very good shape otherwise, which I now appreciate after driving a couple of “good shape” Tercels from Craig’s list. Any advice will be appreciated.

[dlb]

135 on all cylinders is fine, no problems there. lots of life left in it!

what kind of noise is it? CVs tend to clunk while bearings tend to whine/grind/groan. a bad bearing shouldn't affect steering that much. there can be some play where the CV enters the diff but not much, and there should be none where it enters the wheel hub. are either of the rubber boots on the CV torn? that would be a dead giveaway that the CV is toast. if that's the case, that's a 1 or 1.5 hour job and CVs are like $150 so it's no biggie. worst case, it is one of the bearings in the diff, but give more details on the sounds first so as to narrow it down.

[danzo]

Welcome to the list! If by 'play in the CV joints' you mean that you can move the axle toward/from either end of the entire axle (stretching/compressing the boots), then that's normal. They need to move along this axis since the entire axle constantly gets longer and shorter as the suspension moves. Not sure if I'm explaining this very well.

But like DLB said a bad CV axle won't make your steering very sloppy. Check the inner and outer tie rods on each side. They are the two piece rods that connect the hub to the steering rack. Lift the front end off the ground, grab the rod and try to move it into and away from the center of the car. There should be no play at all. Even if you can move it an eigth of an inch it will make your steering noticeably sloppy. Typically the boot at the rack will break and allow moisture to rust out the ball and socket tie rod to rack joint. Fortunately a cheap and easy fix, but you must realign the front end after replacement. A DIY alignment is not too tough.

Good luck! BTW where are you located?

[4wdchico]

Welcome! I'd also check for bad front wheel bearings. When they start to go bad they at first make a bit of noise, then they progress to lots of noise with lots of slop.

[Petros]

welocome to the list!

all good replys, engine sounds normal for that many miles, worn but very servicable. Replace the axles with the worn CV joints for sure, really worn CV joints will act just like that-to the point of being undrivable. Sounds like all the problems are limited to the front axles.

You also might check front wheel bearings, ball joints and tie rod ends for excessive play. All of those will affect steering. These parts are not too costly if you do the repair your self, none should require front end alignment.

You need to be more specific about about what you mean by excessive play, what parts exactly have excessive play? The CV joints should have no rotational play, but do have plung-allowing the axle to get longer or shorter, as Danzo pointed out.

Sounds like the car is well worth keeping, so get your tools out and get it fixed!

[arbskynxnex]

I would jack the front of the car up and shake the tires by hand. If they wobble a lot take the tires off and see if the hub is loose on the half shaft (CV axle) splines. If so that would be either bad bearings or the nut holding them on the spline somehow worked loose. If not check the rest of the suspension and steering components. Nothing should be loose that I can think of, easily movable yes, but not loose, since you can turn the steering at the tires when its jacked up. Noise (clunking) on hard turns sounds very much like CV joints going, though even when I drove my old tercel with bad cv units (you could move the shaft forwards or backwards an inch or 2) it would steer okay though it bounced around the corners. It is entirely possible it is more than one thing too.

FYI Replacing half shafts is pretty easy and quick if you have the right tools. You need a jaw type puller to remove the hub along with a steering arm puller (don't use a pickle fork unless you're putting a new steering arm on). The ball joint actually unbolts from the hub so you don't have to use a puller on that. I use a pickle fork to pop the half shafts out of the transmission, I wouldn't use a slide hammer since the half shafts have enough lateral play even when good you'll never get enough force to pull them out. Ask me how I know! And I THINK it is a 34mm socket (I can't remember the size) to take off the spline nut, which you should break loose before you put the car on a jack otherwise the appropriate swearing to mechanicing ratio gets blown away when you can't break that nut loose because you took the brakes off already and it just spins.

[solarlord]

you have nothing to lose from pulling the whole lot (front end) apart(suspension /bearings/steering/cv) and checking all and repaclacing-if you have the time and interest-other wise drive drive till something goes v-bad then you will know what is!!!- when stripping down soak everything(nuts /bolt) in duck oil 24hrs before you start-then jack it up and place firm blocks both sides-part loosen as many nuts as poss before you take the weight of the wheels- del boy