Any tips on replacing a front axle? I just noticed today that the inner cv joint on my wife's 99 wagon has a split boot and it's been spitting grease everywhere. thanks.
pretty much i found that to get by without using a pickel fork on the ball joint. take off the ball joint nut and disconnect the swaybar. put a floor jack under the ball joint and jack up. then hit down on the control arm with a masive hammer.
Well, it wasn't too bad, the driveaxle nut was a pain to break loose, it was rusted on pretty good. Otherwise the old axle came out ok. I didn't take the ball joint apart, I just unbolted the strut and that gave enough room to get the axle out. The new axle went in easy, but I had trouble getting the new pin in. It looked perfectly lined up, but I had to take the axle back out and rotate it 180 on the transmission, then the pin went in ok. Took about 2 hours total. I need to invest in a better set of punches for dealing with those pins, and a 32mm impact socket for the axle.
