CV issues with a coil over lift?

[jeffrosheen]

I have 63k miles on my 4x4 v8 4 4runner. I lifted it about a year ago with a Overland 2.5" adjustable lift and have been very pleased with it up until today. After looking under the front, I found my cv joints were spewing grease.

I had a hunch that my Certified Warranty from Toyota wouldn't cover it because of the lift, but the mechanic's explanation made no sense. Could anyone give me an explanation if why a lift causes the joint to fail?

Also, are there any mods I can do to prevent this from happening again?

 

[YotaDan]

The joint itself is fine. Just the boot either tore, or due to lifting, it just pushed excess grease out the end of the boot. If the boots are not torn, then I would just clean up the mess and call it good.

 

[04rnr]

I sure if you would search you would find your answer

 

[S p a r k y]

if you lift your 4runner, you have a greater angle on your CV boots, which in turn tears boots or pulls them back. This is a common issue. The higher you go the better the chance of failure. You can purchase a 1 inch diff drop kit for very cheap to help fix the angle.

I purchased GSP axles from advanced. They come with a lifetime warranty. Bought the first set 3 years ago. Just swapped them out this week for new ones since I had one boot tore. Now I have brand new ones until they fail again, which will hopefully be a few years.

Roughly $175 for the axles. But I had no problem paying that since now I don't have to deal with grease or adding new boots.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

I have 63k miles on my 4x4 v8 4 4runner. I lifted it about a year ago with a Overland 2.5" adjustable lift and have been very pleased with it up until today. After looking under the front, I found my cv joints were spewing grease.

I had a hunch that my Certified Warranty from Toyota wouldn't cover it because of the lift, but the mechanic's explanation made no sense. Could anyone give me an explanation if why a lift causes the joint to fail?

Also, are there any mods I can do to prevent this from happening again?

You can fight their "explaination" as the CV angle with the OLW 2.5" kit is not much different than stock and doesn't put nearly as much strain as it does on other vehicles. I run a 2.5" OLW lift on my truck personally for over a year and the CVs are perfectly fine, I run my truck rough and off-road in it often so if angle was an issue it would have shown by now. The mechanic (assuming this is what he's talking about) has a valid point about CV angle concerns when lifting, but for the most part on a 4Runner the lift options top out around 3" and provide very little stress on the actual CV axles vs. say a Subframe lift on a Tacoma with a 6"+ lift to run 35" tires on it.

A differential drop is always a valid option, but many members (myself included) run without one as it really something that you gain as much benefit from as you do loss. By that I mean, the angle change is so minimal vs. the loss of 1" of clearance it is really a net loss vs. a net gain to install a differential drop. Now if you had something like a 4"+ lift on your vehicle then that may come into play.

Let me ask you this, is there a tear behind small diameter clamp on the inboard CV boots? They tear and leak from there on STOCK vehicles commonly on high mileage vehicles. It was one of the first warranty claims I had done on my 4Runner before ANY aftermarket components went on the vehicle. The Tacomas, FJ Cruisers, and 4Runners seem to have this issue and its probably more an issue of the CV boot design than anything really.

 

[Spenser]

Leaking grease is just something that happens. I have the OLW 2.5's and agree that you don't need a diff drop so long as you don't go over 3" -- if you want to be on the safe side, keep the lift between 2.5 and 2.75".

My right inner boot began leaking about 6 months ago, but had gotten pretty bad recently. The outter one was just beginning to leak as well. Boots weren't torn and joints were fine. I didn't have the time to deal with it so I took it to the dealership who replaced the inner and outer boots using Toyota boot kit. They charged me something like $40 for the kit and $200 for labor. I do most of my own maintenance, so when I have to splurge on something like this it doesn't hurt as much when I'm crunched for time or don't feel like dealing with stinky grease. If you can get them to do it under warranty though, that's even better.

If you're not hearing noises you're probably doing ok. As long as the boots aren't leaking too badly and no water has gotten in, you may be able to inject some grease and replace the clamps yourself without much headache. If water got in then you'll definitely need to clean it all out well before repacking with grease. It's just a messy job to clean out the joints/boots and repack, but not overly complex. There's a ton of threads online regarding the procedures. Just make sure you use proper replacement clamps.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Ah, forgot to mention that for some reason the clamps on these trucks seem to lose their clamping force over-time. But you said your boot was torn so it slippe my mind.