Driveshaft Removal

[Jerro]

G'day Forum member's. I have a 1999 NL 3.5 Paj which is in need of a new left cv joint and a new right cv boot. My question is do I have to remove the torsion bar's,I thought I read somewhere you have to remove them to get the shaft's out>I could be wrong.. Any advice would be appreciated I want to tackle the job myself I figured it cant be too difficult. I am mechanically minded and have replaced a diff in a grand vitara previously with no issues. Hope to hear your input Cheer's Everyone. Regard's Justin.

[03gallagherj]

No need to removed the torsion bars.
All you'll need to do is follows

LHS
*Crack wheel nuts & Free wheel hub bolts
*Jack Car up
*Take wheel off
*Take free wheel hub off & remove circlip
*unbolt brake calliper (17mm)
*loosen tie rod end bolt and give the head a nice knock with the hammer (leave nut on to avoid damaging thread)
*remove
*do the same with the lower ball joint but instead hit the sides of the steering knuckle the joint bolts to (leave nut on until upper has also been cracked)
*same for upper as lower
*remove steering knuckle assembly
*grab a hold of the CV shaft closest to the diff as possible......

***PULL WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT!!!!!***
CV shaft if held in with a circlip and can be very hard to remove it if it hasnt been removed in quite some time

RHS - same as left but needing to unbolt CV shaft from the Inner shafts flange from memory they are 14-15mm bolt/nuts

Jackson

[Jerro]

Thank you Jackson You are worth your weight in gold mate. I can not wait to fix the Pajero we haven't been four wheel driving in 2 weeks'.

Thank's Justin.

[chutsy33]

Instead of pulling with all your might just pull the CV boot off the diff end,using a small flat blade screw driver unclip the circlip from the groove,should just slip straight out.Same goes for puttng it all back together. Grease up the CV and fill the CV boot,slip it into the housing, feed the wire circlip back into the groove the clamp the boot on.

[03gallagherj]

Instead of pulling with all your might just pull the CV boot off the diff end,using a small flat blade screw driver unclip the circlip from the groove,should just slip straight out.Same goes for puttng it all back together. Grease up the CV and fill the CV boot,slip it into the housing, feed the wire circlip back into the groove the clamp the boot on.

Sorry was refering to the Circlip that holds the CV shaft in the diff, not the circlip that holds the CV joint's bearings in place.
This circlip is the one that clicks into the "spider" gears inside the diff only way to see it is to open up the diff casing, but not necessary with the style of clip it is.... just need to give it a bit of a tug and the whole shaft will come free from the diff..... unless of course it has been in there for quite some time in which case it does require a little more of a pull

Jackson

[Madmen]

What happens when you pull with all your might and only the end comes out leaving the circlip end still in diff??? I've the air chisel out and everything still won't budge the s.o.b!!! 😠😠😠

[derrilex]

That's why you don't pull with all your might. You need to compress the circlip evenly in its groove. Of course, you can't see it though. You need to wedge one side of the inner CV housing with a big screwdriver while at the same time hitting the opposite side with something appropriate like a lump of timber and hammer or big brass drift and hammer. Most times it's a two person job I wish MM made both shafts with bolt on flanges. Makes things so much easier.

[Ian Sharpe]

You can do the right hand side without dropping any ball joints. Its a very very tight situation & you can just do it.

You have to drop the steering arm joint & also take off the shock absorber mount on the bottom arm. Never done the left & dont want to either!!

[Soa]

I cant remove LH drive shaft .even though I pulled it with all my might (I should mention i am not mighty ), it didnt come out of diff.
is there any trick to remove it from diff ?
i am thinking about opening diff cover but i am not sure if circlip is accessible or not.

[pharb]

Worse case scenario -
Drain diff diff oil
Remove cover off front of diff
Can now access the circlip on the inside end of shaft
Can poke circlip around to centralise it which may enable the CV joint and drive shaft assembly to be pulled out.
Or alternatively can use large punch to hammer shaft out from inside.

[Soa]

thank you pharb
what happen if i use cv shaft as a slide hammer to pull the inner joint out?
removing cv axle seems much more difficult than what has written in manual.

[pharb]

CV joint as slide hammer is what I usually do, sometimes with a lever behind the CV housing to preload a bit of pressure on it to start with.

Some I have done turn out easy, others hard. Not necessarily for any particular reason.

[Soa]

I used cv axle as a slide hammer and it easily removed from diff

thank you pharb