moda_way

I first want to thank JTso for suggesting these axles and Excelerate for giving me a fantastic price on them. Without a doubt, this fixed my "mystery shake" that occured from 57-64mph and it isn't until I completed this "mod" that I realized how bad it had gotten. The car is finally back to normal. So here's my DIY for replacing your axles.

A moment about liability. These are not all the possible directions, just the ones I used. I take no responsibility for anyone attempting to do this themself. If you do it yourself, you take the risks, not me.

You'll need (at minimum):
10, 14, 17, 19, and 36mm sockets and box end wrenches
breaker bar (if you have a bar to extend it, that will help)
air impact (optional, but may helpful)
a can of brake cleaner
a ball joint lifter (you can try a pickle fork, but it didn't work for me)
pry bar
large end punch or drift
Axle grease
Hammer
2 new axle nuts (90305-SD4-003) *Go to Honda, they're cheaper there
Torque wrench (if possible, one that goes to 181ft lbs or more)


Jack the car up and place it on jack stands.
Remove the front tires (I suggest putting them under the car as a safety mechanism)

I started on the Driver's side...
With both wheels off, you'll need to remove the Axle nuts. They may or may not come off with your impact. Mine only got the passenger side off. So grab a friend, your 36mm socket, breaker bar and extention (again, mine was the bar from the jack) and have the friend press on the brakes while you remove the nuts. At 181ft lbs, they don't come off easy, not to mention they are dented onto the axle. I tried to remove that depression out with a flat head... didn't work, so I muscled them off.




Remove the bottom bolt and nut from the wishbone or "suspension fork" using a 17mm socket and box end wrench. This is what the bottom of the shock is attached to.
Remove the top bolt from the wishbone or "suspension fork" and push it down.
Now with your left hand and arm, push down on the top of the rotor. This will give you enough clearance to get the suspension fork out from under the shock.


Go to the bottom of the lower A arm and remove the cotter pin and king nut (17mm socket) from the LBJ (Lower Ball Joint)


This is where things get challenging..
Spread a significant amount of axles grease all over the LBJ boot getting underneath the boot as well (found an old tooth brush to work great)
Slip the ball joint lifter tool under the boot and get the bottom of the tool on the LBJ thread bolt. Be careful not to rip the boot. However, I found under the compression, some of the grease inside the boot will squeeze out.
Crank on the bolt of the ball joint lifter until you hear a pop. This is the LBJ releasing. One mechanic told me to hit the side of the lower A arm and that would release the LBJ, however I guess my Ohio weather and salt created more rust than that could release.
Now that the LBJ is released, pick up the entire assembly (brake, rotor, etc) until the LBJ is completely out of the socket.
Take your hammer and hit the end of the axle out of the center of the rotor and hub. Do this gently because you don't want to hit so hard as to hurt the transmission case seal.
Once free, you'll need to prop the wheel assembly up on the lower A arm and the axle there too.
You'll need a sizeable pry bar now to pry the inboard part of the axle out of transmission case. I had to remove the 10mm bolt nearest the A arm on the undertray so I could get into the axle a little easier. I interestingly used my pickle fork here and it was the only thing that could pry it out of the tranny case... BUT BE GENTLE TOO, this is a Magnesum case. A large flat head is NOT good enough... I tried it. Pay attention to the gap for when you install the new axle. I had to pry the axle out a good amount, about 2 inches before I could pull it out the rest of the way by hand.




Now its time to put in your new axle.
Make sure the side going into the tranny case is clean of any debris.
Carefully slide the axle into the transmission case (the proper side of course). It will stop at a certain point. This is were the ring clip is going to snap in place. Give the axle a fair good shove in and it should seat itself. Crawl under and look to make sure the inboard CV is tight up against the case. You shouldn't see any gap other than what you saw when you removed the old axle.
Once seated, lift up on the brake/wheel assembly and slide the other end of the axle into the hub. You may need to rotate the hub a little to get it to slide in.
Once in, guide the assembly back in to seat the LBJ.
With the lower ball joint in place, put on the king nut and tighten to 65 ft lbs. You'll probably have to tighten a little more to get the cotter pin in. DO NOT FORGET THE COTTER PIN. This is a safety issue.
Put the suspension fork over the new axle and drive the lower A arm down to get it under the shock.
I bolted the lower part of fork on first then tightened to 47 ft lbs. Now I used the jack to jack up the A arm to put the shock under load. This insures you have the shock all the way into the upper mount of the fork.
Tighten that bolt down to 32 ft lbs. and release the jack.
Hand tighten the axle nut for now.

Time to move onto the passenger side. Follow all the same instructions from above with the exception of removing the axle.

All you have to do here is once free of the hub assembly, take your drift or large diameter bar and place it on the inboard CV, which is attached to an extention bar into the tranny. Hit the part of the axle that is outboard of the extention bushing until it releases. This took more force than me prying out the drivers side axle, but I also wasn't hitting the driver's side either, so take that for what its worth.




Apply the smallest amount of axle grease to the inside of the inboard CV grooves and then wipe it clean. Don't over do this at all, less is more here.
Again, you'll have to shove this inboard CV with a good amount to get it to clip on. You'll know it is seated, by again, going under the car and looking at it. You should see the slightest of gaps and will have felt the ring clip snap.
With that finished, follow the same directions above until you've put on the axle nut.

Grab your friend again to press on the brakes. Get the nuts as tight as you can with your torque wrench. If it is capable of 181ft lbs, go for it. I used my breaker bar and the bar from the jack again to get more torque on it. I'm guessing I reached the 170s (150ft lbs from my torque wrench and my additional tightening).
After you finish both sides, dent the axle nut in with a drift or punch until it is solidly down in the groove.
Finally, spray down the rotors with brake cleaner. I'm sure you touched them at some point and it is a good thing to clean them off.
Put your wheels back on with 80 ft lbs of torque on the lug nuts in a star pattern.

Go out for a test drive and verify everything is working.

Feel free to ask questions.

I give this a 6 out of 10 on difficulty... on the order of doing a brake job with a bit more difficulty because ball joints just suck to work with and can puncture easily.

Again, a huge thanks to Excelerate for getting them to my doorstep. There simply wasn't a better priced set of axles.

KingTSX

iTrader: (1)

Wow, that is an excellent DIY writeup...thanks Modaway and Jtso for always helping out. I know this will be a must do in the near future as alot of us are experiencing the misterious shaking over 50mph...way to go!!!

chhimp

Excellent right up. Good to see it fixed the mystery shake. thumbs up. I will try this on my civic once the parts arrive and hope it solves my mystery shake. Again, good job.

JTso

iTrader: (2)

Congrats on the repair. Those shafts can be a pain to get out.

kaliraver69

Great write up Moda_way I am glad that it fixed your issue with your car.

nbtx

How much wear/free play was there in the CV joints? Inner, outer or both? And how many miles on the car before failure?

moda_way

A lot of free play on the driver's side. Not bad on the passenger side. Failure, to the best of my recollection was around 70k. I'm at 75k now. Could've been sooner but its hard to tell since it is a progressive wear.

godfather2

i'll probably never attemp that diy. kudos

dP-

Great writeup!

SoCaliTrojan

Excellent write-up for an axle replacement...but where's the info about the axle? I just skimmed through it...but I don't see where the axle is from (ie: manufactured by)? Or are they just generic which happen to be better than OEM? (Maybe OEM has a flaw so a 2nd factory axle won't cut it?) Or is it improved in some way?

Does this shaking only affect certain cars?

moda_way

Sorry, I thought it might be a repost since JTso posted the place in the "mysterious shaking" thread in the Problems area. Again, I got pricing through Excelerate, which was much better than direct:

http://www.driveshaftshop.com/item167462.ctlg

They have a Level 2.9 set which is good to 475 hp, but I went with the Level 0, which are a step up from OEM.

I can tell you if there is a flaw, Acura hasn't recognized it by changing the original part number. Now sometimes they change part numbers due to manufacturers change or model year change, but sometimes they obsolescence a part because they improved it. I simply haven't seen enough issues with our axles to warrant it yet.

Also, I thought mine was a slipping clutch or my Avon Tech M500s going early because it happened so slightly in 3rd gear (which is where I'm pulling into the 57-64mph typically). It wasn't until it got bad enough that I realized it would only happen under load. Then it got progressively worse and worse until I simply couldn't take it any longer. The final diagnosis came when the Acura mechanic who did my flywheel/clutch job said, "Hey, your driver's side axle is toast and your passenger side is well on its way too" a thousand miles or so ago.

Given the fact that my tires are 5 lbs heavier each than stock and I've significantly improve the torque and hp delivery to them, for all I know, I could be the reason the axles decided to give it up. I love the Avons, but I won't upsize next time.

nbtx

75k miles is pretty early for worn out. Is there grease inside the boots yet, or have the boots failed and the CV joints are dry? (GM had problems in the early 80s with their first design boots on Citations and other FWD cars with the boots tearing open.) When road dirt gets inside the joints are toast in a few miles. Just wondering if this is a problem we'll all see down the road ...

moda_way

Read the last para of my response just above. And if you can see my pics, you'll see the boots are still 100%.

CGTSX07

I am guessing this is how u remove the rotor as well if you want to replace them?

moda_way

Nope. You only need remove the caliper, caliper bracket and two rotor screws with an impact driver or impact gun. There are 4 threads at least on how to do it.

nbtx

OK, boots are intact - I can see the one picture and both inner and outer boots look good. I guess I wasn't clear enough - if you still have the old ones you might want to open the boot of the worst CV joint to see if there is any grease inside. The grease should be inside the joint with enough elasticity left to keep the metal surfaces lubricated. I'm not convinced your tire weight and aggressive driving should have caused failure this soon.

And thanks for your write-up and answers.

moda_way

ahhh, yes, i could do a little bit of an autopsy on them. Right now I can't get rid of them for core to anyone. I did also try to "give" them to someone who might want to start making TSX axles and I've only gotten a "no thanks, not right now."

At this point, I can tell you that the inboard joints are sloppy, moreso on the driver's side. There is no indication of lack of grease in the joint by manipulating them... e.g. I get no grinding. Everything slips as you would expect.

lvcurvs

Thread revival but his directions are dead on. I'm actually in the process of getting my axles replaced due to this shake and just pulled them out last night. Took me about 45 minutes on the ground with hand tools. never saw any directions but i've done other honda's so figured it couldn't be much diff., which is wasn't.

Just a couple more "tips" the axles are a pain sometimes to get out of the tranny. What helps, if you have another person, is have that person rotate the axles little by little while your prying/ using a punch to get them out. Sometimes you'll find a "sweet spot" that allows the axle to pop out a lot easier.

Also when your installing it and it won't go in, pull it out, rotate it a little then re insert it, keep trying until it goes in. It needs some effort to be pushed in but you don't have to lay into it with all your weight. Rotating the axles while removing or installing them is tedious but i promise you that it's worth it.


Another tip is that if you smack the lower control arm with a hammer to release the lower ball joint, put the castle nut (king nut, whatever you want to call it) back on to the ball joint so if you miss the arm you don't booger up the threads on the joint. I usually will put the nut back on so that I have about a 1/4" between the nut and the control arm. It covers enough of the threads to protect them while leaving enough room to allow the ball joint to come lose.

moda_way

Yeah, I tried this one per recommendation of a Honda tech, but mine was just not giving it up. I think I mentioned I used the ball joint tool from Honda which worked like a charm, but the disadvantage of this tool is it had a high frequency of destroying the ball joint boot. I "customized" their tool and too the rough edges off.

Your other tips are excellent.

lvcurvs

Yeah, you mentioned trying to smack it. Honestly I was surprised mine came out without a tool. Had to give it a couple of good whacks but nothing wicked hard. I hate using the ball joint tools cause i'm always worried about tearing that damn boot. They're already real soft rubber and that's the last thing i need. Now before I put my axles back in, I need to cut my dust shields off while I got a little room. I'll post again later to see if something changes in my vibration/shaking problem. I just realized today that i have a mismatched tire combo up front. One tire is about 2 months old, the other is probably atleast a year. i forgot my wife ran over a bunch of nails a bit ago. i'll rotate the tires and see whats up before i get into other options.

raya

Old thread but I'm sure people still use it so here is my 2 cents.

If you have problem removing lower ball joint, you can unbolt the lower control arm instead. It's only held by two bolts.

Autozone rents out tool for removing axle.

It's called FWD Axle Puller Adapter OEM27058 and works together with Slide Hammer OEM27033. I used it to remove the axle from passenger side.




Driver's side you still use pry bar. It took a lot of force and you can't get a clear angle at without removing the splash shield.

And while you have the splash shield off, I suggest changing transmission fluid after the axle change.

moda_way

^^Great points.

DuckDodgers

Anyone looking at this repair to solve a shake must also be aware of the "intermediate shaft" which runs across the bottom of the engine from the transmission to the right axle. There is a carrier bearing that can fail progressively and only show by either noting the shake described above or looking closely at the carrier and finding small traces of grease. My problem was the intermediate shaft, and by the time that got fixed, it had damaged the right axle too.

Bonus, 2006 and on TSX's have a 6 yr/70k coverage on the driveline, including the shafts!

08FG2

the rsx is designed the same way correct? ive been trying to get the passenger side out and it just wont budge.

rtea2008

iTrader: (2)

Where did you purchase your axles? I'm in need of changing out my axles because I feel the vibrations when accelerating around 60 mph. Man I hate it! I also see some cv boot grease splatting everywhere.

rtea2008

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update: I found axles thanks to @vtech-erick. Replaced both driver and passenger side, now my car rides smooth like before. I am a happy camper

I do have a question though, I used a pickle fork to separate the lower ball joints, pierced the boots, and leaked out grease. Should I get those changed out immediately? How hard is that task? I googled failing lower ball joints and saw some bad stories about their wheels flying off or losing control after an amount of time.

sixwhip14

I read this out of curiosity to see if changing axles was similar to that of my 97 accord v6. I had to change them both out a few years after I lowered it. It is the same so I know I can handle it.
rtea2008, I did one of my balljoints too and it's doable. For me though I had to take the knuckle off the car cause I had some issues with the wheel bearing being in the way of the balljoint. On the TSX it could be different. If you can change axles, you can figure out the balljoints.

Johns

Does anyone know if the carrier bearing on the intermediate shaft can be replaced, or must the whole shaft be replaced?

DuckDodgers

Acura replaced the whole thing, but...service manual does has a procedure to disassemble the intermediate shaft. It requires 5 special tools and a bunch of work. On the whole, bite the bullet. If the carrier bearing goes south, it damages the splines anyway as the shaft rotates off center.

pewpew

So how much were the DSS 0 axles for both left/right? I'm debating between those or EMPI's

rj.r1005

What brand are they ? I need to buy some too

NwTSXmt

I suggest YOU take your car to a shop...any shop

rtea2008

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