goravens

Hey guys,

First time poster. I have 02 S2K with 104k miles and it was shaking under acceleration in higher speeds. While most people experience shaking on driver's side, I experienced shaking on passenger side and 2 separate shops said i need new passenger side axle. I decided to try swapping axle cups first.

I stumbled on this thread (axle bucket) Inner CV joint swap DIY with picsand some members posted that you don't have to remove axles to swap joints. All one had to do was remove two 17mm bolts holding upper control arm and it will allow you to move axle out of the way and swap cups. That's the direction I decided to go since I had no torque ratchet capable of 220 lb-ft and 36mm socket.

I decided to make a thread with 2 suggestions/advices to those who will attempt swapping joints without removing axles since I haven't seen anyone mention it before.

1 - the 17mm upper control arm bolts facing springs were hitting the spring and couldn't be removed. Luckily I had access to spring compressor. On one side, I had to compress the spring to be able to remove the bolt. On the opposite side, I actually had to stretch the spring. Am I the only one who faced that problem? So I would highly suggest seeing if upper control arm bolts will hit springs. If so, removing axles might be easier...

2 - there's barely any clearance when removing joints. It is definitely a 2 person job. Another challenge that I faced is putting the joints back on, since axle bushing that go inside the joints kept falling off. Not having any clearance didn't help either. While it was great not removing axles, not having much clearance was a huge negative. I had the car on jack stands, maybe lift would work better. Axle removal would make putting the joints back on easy.

What I found: even though my shaking came from passenger side, it was my driver's side joint that was trashed (pic below). The top of the joint is chewed up - does anyone know why it would happen? I can understand why the inside of the joint would be worn, but the top??? The grease was black and liquidy, unlike the passenger side that was yellow greenish like in the link above.

Swapping the joints did solve my problem. I wonder how long it would last before I have to buy 2 new joints.

Thanks

El S2000

I just have a few comments to add for you.


1. You should have just popped the lower ball joint. Doing this allows you to slide the whole axle outward and pivot it on the upper ball joint and is a piece of cake. I don't know why noone wants to do this method.

2. I did mine by myself, with the lower ball joint removed you can push out on the rotor with yor feet if needed to give you clearence at the diff to put the cups back in. The bearings/bushing on the axle I lathered up in cv grease to get them to 'stick' to the axle shaft while I slid the cv bucket on. It really wasn't bad at all..

It sounds like someone already messed with your driver side cv since there was a different colored grease in it.

Moral of the story is if you wanna swap cv cups without removing axles then pop the lower ball joint. You can rent the 'pitman arm puller' tool from your local parts store and slide it over the lower ball joint and pops faster and easier then removing the control arm bolts.

s2000Junky

The method I employ is just loosening up the diff so that I can get max range back and forth, then take a sizable pry bar and pry out each shaft. It takes some effort and a little technique, to slip the shafts out of the guide pins, but there is just enough room to do so. I'm not saying its the best method, but its another alternative.