What to torque it to?, 6 hexhead inner cv bolts Options

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

Yea its an 8mm Hex, and I'll bet money on it. Haha.


Make sure you use a good quality Moly grease, and work it into those axle bearings!! I usually just pack it right in as best I can into the bearing race, the retaining basket for the bearings, and the rubber boot.

You want as much of the grease in that area of the axle to avoid metal on metal contact, allowing it to move freely under load. Like Jeremy said, be sure to seal the surface when you bolt it up with the gasket and some thread lock to avoid making a mess or havng the bolts back themselves out from the vibrations in the drivetrain.

I only ever use hand tools on the axle so that I can feel that its threading properly. Then I torque the six bolts down to around 40-45 ft/lbs on both sides, making sure theres even torque all the way around.




In a side note though, you shouldn't need to pop out the outer tie-rod from the hub at all. When the three 17mm bolts that secure the lower ball joint are removed, you can pull the whole strut assembly upwards and out of the suspension A-arms. Theres enough pivot there to remove the axle from the hub, no problems.

If you did have to remove the tie-rod from the hub, you would remove the pin and remove the castle nut from the bottom and then use a ball joint popper or Pitman joint puller. Sort of like this:

Pitman Joint puller-



3-jaw puller-




The jaws of the puller will sit right on the hub/steering knuckle, and you can push right against the threaded portion on the bottom of the joint. This way you aren't beating up on the tie-rod end at all, it will just pop right out of the steering knuckle with minimal effort instead.

I picked up a Pitman joint puller (like the one in the first pic) from NAPA to seperate my tie-rods, and it worked like a charm.





6gsillyca, are you using some sort of spacer setup on that side?



-Corey

This post has been edited by Silver94CelicaOwner: Apr 21, 2008 - 5:19 PM

[6gsillyca]

Thanks for all the info and pics. I was going to get a puller as a last resort, but ended up not needing to remove the tie-rod end. I was able to get it out by removing just the 3 control arm nuts, but I did take off the sway bar endlink.


A good tip for using a puller though, is to keep the castle nut on the end of the tie-rod stud to avoid injury in the case of violent seperation. BTW does the castle nut get tq to spec? Because of the way the nut is designed I don't think I can tq it and still get the cotter pin in, due to the castle part covering the pin hole.


I packed the inner joint as good as I could, but because it came sealed with a zip-tie, I wasn't able to really pack it in. I put as much as I could into the joint, and the rest I stuffed into the inner "cup". I just used the bag of grease that came with the axle...Should I get some more axle grease and try and pack a bit more into the inner joint? I'm worried about the races/bearings falling out if I take the axle out again though...Will I be able to work the grease into the joint by turning the axle by hand back and forth? Or if I jacked the front of the car up and "drove" at a low speed? That way there would be no load on the axle, and the grease could get properly set.


I will have to get some blue loctite and RnR the bolts. I only had them tightened for now (until I could find the tq spec). BTW I do have 10mm hexhead not 8mm, so the money you were willing to put down...I accept paypal j/k


As for the spacer, yes I do believe so. This is Jays old car, but when I removed the axle, I was expecting a third "spacer" piece to come out after the 6 hex bolts were out, but it seemed to all be connected w/o the hexbolts. I posted a pic on the last page of what was left of my inner stub.
http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showto...p;hl=short+axle


BTW nice name. lol, even had the "e"

Corey.

This post has been edited by 6gsillyca: Apr 19, 2008 - 12:10 PM

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

The stock CV bolts are 8mm.


I didn't even realize that was Jay's old car....in that case, it has spacers on the axles so you're good there.

I think as long as you applied as much grease as you could, you'll be just fine. No worries there. Just get those babies torqued down and you'll be all set.



-Corey

[alltracman78]

Alltrac axle bolts are 10mm, not 8mm.
I can't say for the MR2, though I would guess they're the same....


If you got the axle in/out without removing the tie rod, all the better.

However, the quickest and easiest way [on a Celica] is to hit it where I showed you. You do have to hit it really hard, but it will pop out. I've never had one that wouldn't.
A puller will work too, especially if you don't have space to swing a hammer. I forget sometimes that you guys don't have the car on a lift.
It's called a Pitman arm puller, not Pullman, though.

If the joint won't turn smoothly, you most likely have the joint discombobulated. It doesn't need grease to turn smoothly by hand [though you obviously need the right amount for driving], and that joint is VERY easy to knock out of wack when it's not on the car.
Unfortunately it's a bit of PITA to get right if it is screwed up.
But you NEED to deal with it now, or else you'll need a new axle.

Torque the castle nut to spec and then however much of a turn is needed to install the cotter pin.

[6gsillyca]

When I got the axle it came with a zip-tie running through the cv joint holding everything in place. The instructions said to bolt 2 bolts up and the cut the zip-tie. It turns ok, its not difficult to turn, it just seems to have a bit of a rough spot. I'm thinking maybe that area isn't greased as good as the others and I just need to work the grease in.

Because I clipped the tie holding it in place after I installed it, I don't see how it could have gotten discombobulated...How should I remove the axle to try and fix it?

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

Pitman arm! Right. Thats the one...thanks Jeremy.

I think as long as you worked the grease into the bearings as best your could, and then torque everything to spec it will be just fine. When you drive the car, the grease will work its way into all the other areas of the axle so I wouldn't worry about it too much.




So sice you guys planted the seed of doubt in my mind regarding the axle bolts, I went to go check out the ones from my MR2 axle and my Camry axle and the ones that were on my Celica now. Mine are all 8mm. You'd think Toyota would stick to a size, but apparently not! Pretty strange if you ask me...







Sorry about the condition of the bolts, those were impacted off because I didn't need them. haha. I'd also like to point out that those photos were taken on the trunk of project Beater Corolla, which currently resides in my garage all put back together.



-Corey

This post has been edited by Silver94CelicaOwner: Apr 21, 2008 - 5:17 PM

[6gsillyca]

Are those bolts normal length? The ones I took off were almost 2x in length as those. Keep in mind I do have a spacer, so I most likely do not have the factory toyota bolts, and that could explain my 10mm hexhead.

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

Yeah those are the stock bolts from an MR2 Turbo. The ones from the Camry/ES250 axles were identical as well. They are quite a bit shorter than the extended bolts that we have to buy for our setups with spacers. I think the ones I bought to use with my spacers were another 3/4" longer than the stock ones if I recall correctly.


Just goes to show how short the axles are without a spacer to compensate for the added wheelbase of the Celica.



-Corey

[alltracman78]

I owe you an apology, the Alltrac bolts are also 8MM, not 10 like I said.

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

It's all good man, no worries.


6gsillyca, how did everything turn out in the end?? Any problems?





-Corey

[6gsillyca]

Well the last few weeks have been really sh!tty weather (record snowfall of almost 2') so the status right now is the bolts are in, improperly torqued, and no threadlock on yet.

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to grab a tube of threadlock and torque them down, but won't be able to comment on the driveability until probably June. The engine is currently in about 50 pieces spread through my house, and I'm currently waiting on parts from powercoating (3-4 week turnaround).