Drivetrain Rebuild: CV Axles Rebuild + CV Axle Seal Replacement + Front Wheel Bearings Replacement

Table of Contents

Drivetrain

• Rear Axle Assembly Rebuild + Rear Axle Seal Replacement
• CV Axles Rebuild + CV Axle Seal Replacement + Front Wheel Bearings Replacement
  
• Driveshafts Rebuild

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This is a continuation of 5th Gen 4Runner Drivetrain Rebuild series. I decided to split up the posts rather than creating a huge post.

 

Seems like someone already tried to get to the cv axle nut before me and instead of using a gentle technique of removing the caps, just used a screwdriver and a hammer.


Condition of the drivetrain components prior to rebuild. The passenger's side brake dust shield was still intact. The one on the driver's side fell off about half a year ago while I was off-roading. I just cut it off completely.


When I started this job, I prepared myself for the worst. Knowing how much rust there was, I suspected that it would be a hustle to get the wheel bearings off of the steering knuckle. Fortunately this was not the case.


There are many videos on YouTube that show how to remove seized wheel bearing using long bolts that pass through the holes where studs are installed. After unbolting the bolts far enough, I discovered that the bolt heads would push the hub out as you undo the bolts. It has been discussed in many other threads that red colored loctite that is used at the factory is not necessarily the same strength as the red loctite that we are used to. I didn't have any problems removing the bolts. It felt as it the strength of the loctite was close to blue.


Old wheel bearing and brake dust shield are out.


This is the driver's side. A small plate of metal is just a reminder that there once was a brake dust shield. Old wheel bearings do not have any identification on them. Based on the red loctite that was on the threads, it seems like they are stock. I am still not sure why someone was trying to get to the axle nut.


I was hoping that I would be able to reuse front ABS sensors, saving myself $100 on this rebuild.


They were seized in the steering knuckle to the extent that I had to rely on a punch to knock them out completely.


CV axle and steering knuckle are out. I managed to knock out CV axle using a large chisel. Hitting CV axle from different locations as I was rotating it was the key to get it going.


Condition of the steering knuckle and steering knuckle seal prior to rebuild.



The groove on the back of the steering knuckle seal houses some sort of lube. I would assume it is some sort of silicone lube that is rubber compatable. There was so much dirt accumulated on top of the lube that I ended up cleaning everything out. It was repacked later on with deelectric grease.


Taking CV joints apart. Rubber boots were still in good condition. I would assume after 14 years and extreme weather conditions, they have hardened quite a bit.


Rust removal and preparation for painting. All of the CV joint components were in good shape. To clean out old grease I used regular soap and hot water. I then followed up with parts cleaner to completely remove old grease.


CV joints painted and ready for reassembly.


Steering knuckles painted and ready for reassembly.


I lubricated steering knuckle seals with deelectric grease and packed the groove with it as well.


Everything is ready for reassembly.


Rebuilt steering knuckle is its place.


New brake dust shield and wheel bearing is installed.

 

ABS Sensors


I had to spend a good half an hour removing rust from the inside of the ABS sensor hole using #300 sand paper.


It will never be perfect, but it is good enough.


I found out the hard way that aftermarket ABS sensor have different types of o-rings. The sensor will fit fine in the 10 mm hole, but the o-ring will prevent it seating completely. This is BECK/ARNLEY 0844269 ABS sensor. It will not fit. The cost of these sensors also varies depending on the side. One of them is $50, while the other one is $100.


After doing in-depth research on aftermarket brands found on RockAuto, I stopped on SMP and WVE. Both of these have withstood the test of time and are very reputable aftermarket brand that will not brake the bank. I went with STANDARD MOTOR PRODUCTS ALS685 and STANDARD MOTOR PRODUCTS ALS684. These fit like a glove.

 

Excellent write up, strannick!

 

CV Axle Seals Replacement


CV axle seals were stuck pretty badly, especially on the passenger's side. I tried to remove them with a hammer and a pry bar first. This didn't work.


AutoZone to the rescue. I ended up loaning slide hammer puller kit from a nearby AutoZone. This made the job much easier.


To make sure the puller can grab onto the metal part of the seal, I had to cut the rubber off completely.


To brake the rust around the seal, I hit it a few times with a hammer until it started to move inwards just a little bit.


After all of the preparatory steps, I finally used slide hammer seal puller to remove it completely from the housing.


The seal is out.


The next step was corrosion removal. I used angle grinder with wire brush attachment for exterior and wire brush attached to a drill for interior.


To prevent rust particles from entering inside, I covered the hole with a circular piece of cardboard.


To install new seals, I got different diameters of PVC pipes that fit perfectly around the metal part of the seals.


2 in PVC coupling for the seal on the driver's side.


ABS Set-in Floor Drain for the passenger's side. Took me a while to find this one.

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One very important thing to note about installation of these seals. There is no stopper, so the seal can go in as far as you push it in.


The manual on page 1317 give you specific parameter for installation of these seals. You have about 1 mm of freedom, which sure makes this job pretty stressful. I had to go little by little. Tap, tap tap, with a hammer. Look at the edges of the seal. Correct any imperfections. Then tap a little more with a hammer.


This is the seal on the driver's side.


PVC pipe in use.


New seal installed.


This is the passenger's side seal.


PVC pipe in use.


Passenger's side seal installed.

 

Good job, always a challenge working on 10+ year old vehicles with rust.

The knuckle seal (aka inner wheel seal on Rock Auto) may come with grease pre-applied for convenience depending on vendor. In my experience, the Timken seals come with grease, while National seals do not. You can use normal lithium grease there.

The wheel bearing comes out from the knuckle easily because there's an O-ring on the shoulder fillet of the bearing. I see SKF now includes the O-ring. The couple of SKF assemblies I bought earlier didn't. From what I've seen, other carmakers (Jeep, Subaru, GM) don't seal the interface between the bearing and knuckle.



Your CV axle likely was previously rebuilt or at least had the boots replaced. The inboard boot has more pleats than factory. (More pleats are better for operation at high angles, like when lifted.)

Your CV axle vs. my Tacoma factory CV axle (same P/N):

 

CV Axles Rebuild

CV axles rebuild was a bit more complicated that I imagined.


The rebuild packaged that was shipped to me from Toyota Parts Deal seemingly contained all the parts for the rebuild of one CV joint. Toyota 04427-60130 Front Cv Joint Boot Kit, In Outboard is the kit that I got from them. This is if you trust whoever packaged this kit. If you trust Toyota manual, then the amount of grease that they sold me in the kit is way off. I decided to trust Toyota manual rather an a seller.

According to the manual the amount of grease that I was supposed to get for the Outer joint is at least 240 grams. I only got 170 g tube. The smaller tube was missing from the kit.


I checked other kits sold online, and most of them include 4 tubes of grease.

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Manual

Grease Capacity

• inner: page 1448 (239 - 249 g)
  • SLF 190g + 50g = 240g
• outer: page 1446 (266 - 276 g)
  • UBZ 180g + 90g = 270g

Clamp Clearance

• larger: 2.1 or lesz
• smaller: 1.3 or less

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158 g out of 170 g. The rest is just left in the tube.


My plan was to use both of the tubes for one CV joint, and fill the other one with a different CV joint grease.


I went with Valvoline Full Synthetic grease that can be used on CV joints.


You can't really pack much into the joint, but the boot will accept most of the grease.


The clamps that the kit came with are heavy duty. I ordered CV Boot Clamp Pliers from Amazon. These did a great job. I also read that people use end nippers for this job. I haven't tried it, but it seems like 10 in version with long handles should do the trick.


CV axle rebuilt.

 

The wheel bearings actually didn't come with the o-ring. I installed it afterwards in preparation for the reassembly.

Great attention to detail! Thanks for pointing this one one. Now I understand why the CV axle nut was removed on one of the sides.

 

Thanks for the detailed writeup. I would have also done the ECGS bushing to replace the needle bearing while you were in that far as preventative maintenance at the same time.

 

I don't even know what these needle bearings are. I will have to look this up. Thanks for pointing this out. Do these wear out as well?

 

If you look at your pic where you shows inside the driver side seal, you can see a roller bearing sleeve in there. It is a common failure point and will start to make noise and may possibly completely fail causing the axle to be loose. so people swap it out for a solid bushing from ECGS. I havent done mine but if I was in that far I would for sure do it.

https://www.4runners.com/threads/2022-needle-bearing-issues.24165/

 

That is very interesting. I wonder if later models were affected by this more than earlier ones. It seems like not an expensive fix. If I only knew about this issue ahead of time, I would definitely get this replaced as well. At this point I am done. I may order the bearing and a new axle seal to keep on hand if this problem ever occurs.

Seems like 4Runners have a lot of weak points.
- Cam bolts seizing
- Steering rack failing
- Steering rack replacement requires the engine to be lifted on 5th gen
- Needle bearing bushings failing

 

Standard practice is to cut the bolts and install new ones upside down.

 

Still much harder than on previous generations. Oil filter housing and air compressor have to be unbolted to get the job done.

 

Thanks again for these threads you’ve been posting. Appreciate the details and pics, since I realize it’s a pain be stopping for clear pics in the middle of a job.

That seems to cover the major weak points, but I’m sure there are a few others. You could argue that some things like cam bolts can happen an any vehicle, but the power steering does seem to be engineered pretty “lightly” on 4runners and Tacomas. It doesn’t seem to take much modifications to overwhelm them. And the needle bearing issue seems to be a straight-up common issue.

That said, despite weaknesses, the 4runner is probably a victim of its own success because they generally last and remain useful for so long (especially when corrosion isn’t a factor).