CV axle question

[KurtL]

This might be a stupid question so forgive me...

I took my front wheels off becuase i have some mud caked up in them that is causing some serious shakes. Discovered i broke a sway bar endlink as well on my last off road excursion.

Anyway i noticed that if i spin the axles, the front driver spins pretty easily however the passenger side is really difficult. Is this normal?

Thanks!

 

[mtbtim]

Is the side that's binding also the side with the broken end link? When you jack up the front end and let the front wheels droop, it does put extra stress on the CV joints due to the increased angle. I experienced this when I was doing a Tundra Brake Upgrade for someone. One axle spinned freely and the other one would bind when I tried to spin it. We finally figured out it was the CV binding due to the severe angle. The truck I was working had a 3" suspension lift so the angle of the CV was already steeper than OEM.

The side the end link is broken on will droop even further creating a more severe angle since the sway bar is disconnected allowing for increased flex.

However, I think I remember the side that was binding was the passenger side as well. I first thought maybe the differential was binding but the transfer case wasn't in 4hi or 4low. I also think we put the transmission in neutral as well to rule it out.

 

[KurtL]

It was indeed the side with the broken endlink. I should have double checked after i fixed the endlink.

 

[1985taylor1925]

Yes, that's a stupid question. I kid, I kid. I had a professor back in college who used to tell us there absolutely is such thing as a stupid question. So one day I asked a question that I probably hadn't thought through well enough, and he paused and looked right at me and said really dramatically in front of the whole class, "that, was a stupid question". Still hurts my feeling every time I think of it.

As mentioned above, was the control arm angle steeper on that side? If the angle of the control arm and thus cv axle is steep, it will be difficult to turn. This is basically because the cv joints are close to binding. If that's not the cause, you will have to look into it further