speechless

 

It probably helped the smell!
Thanks fellas...well, axle swapped...vibration not gone
dammit

 

Vibration at high speed?

 

Damn...

 

chasing vibrations is the absolute worst . been there done that, not fun

 

Do you have hub centric rings

 

 

Wheel balance?

Bad tire?

Warped rotor?

 

Unfortunately not, guys...
it's a weird shudder, MOST felt when pulling hard on 2nd/3rd gear from about 3 to 4K rpm and then it smooths out. It comes and goes, so I was leaning hard on it being the passenger side raxle. I have been told the driver side one was changed out for a raxle by Andy and he knew this car very well.

I was reading up on clutch chatter but I should be feeling that in 1st down low rpm and I don't. I may take a drive up to Conrad to get his opinion on it too...

 

The $260 shipped was a tough pill to swallow, but I will say that it did feel really well put together...the boots are very tough rubber and there seems to be an added dampener ring that must help with vibrations...

At least I have all new and "new" axles raxles now.
Plus, I had never done a CV axle before...I love learning new shit and troubleshooting...the car still drives great, I'm just anal about perfectly smooveeee!

Glad I spent the 20 bucks...although I have had great luck with a hammer and some will power in the past, this little balljoint separator from HF for $20 was a no brainer.



My new impact gun made super short work of the axle nut...not even a hesitation, whacked right off


Side by side...hopefully Marty can reuse mine as a core trade in or I'm gonna have to eat another $80.


I watched a youtube where they suggested using gear lube to kinda prep the end of the shaft and retention ring to keep it centered as you pushed the new CV on.



While I had the car jacked up, I checked the oil and figured it would be good to start fresh with my own own change finally. Swapped over to these skunk two steel magnetic drain bolts



I'll hit the transmission fluid in the next few weeks too.

 

I knew you had it in you!


at least it wasn't too bad of a swap. And hey, who doesn't love new parts?!


I'll text the guy who I sold my car to and see what he says about his vibrations. He seemed hell bent on getting rid of them and was planning to throw a ton of parts at it. Ill let ya know!


Sweet bolts btw!

 

Thank you, Q...
I appreciate it, man.

Well, after looking more closely at it...I think Andy confused JJH's previous car with this one. Looks like the vibration is BETTER, but not gone...but the driver side axle is DEFINITELY not changed nor a raxle. SOO, that said, I may have to swap that out too so at least I'll know they're both new axles.

 

Tough break man, I feel like most of the vibration should go away once the driver axle is swapped as well. At least you know that now! And if it makes you feel any better, all of the TL's I've bought (all 4) have needed axles around 100-120k miles. SO it was likely due anyway!

Spoke with the guy,

He said he replaced both axles, wheel bearings, did a full camber kit (I hadn't) and added the stoptech brake kit all around. I'm guessing the axles would have gotten rid of the vibrations, or maybe the addition of the camber kit. I can't imagine the wheel bearings having too much affect, or the brake kit obviously.

I might go with a pair of OEM axles when I get around to it, but I will start by raising the car up a bit since I'm tired of hearing the fender scrape the tire anyway.

 

Thanks Quadrat...I appreciate the follow up.
Yeah, I think the bearings are fine...they're quiet. I only know that because new owner and I discovered that the old TL had a bearing going bad.

Anyway...I think you're right...just got off the phone with Marty at RAXLES...he's the man, he confirmed that BOTH of mine are aftermarket chinese shitty axles. I contemplated going OEM on the driver side to save a few bucks, but my OCD made me want to keep both raxles now that I've seen how well put together they are including the boots and the type of grease he packs in there. I'd only have been saving about $160 going with OEM on the one side, so I'll go raxles both sides this time around. If I were starting from scratch I'd go oem too though, that would have saved me $300 overall.

Oh well...if this makes her drive smoothly, which I'm sure it will...I'll be extremely happy with the car as is...then the only thing to address eventually are the leaking steering rack and oil pump seal. Which I'll address down the line. I can already tell the vibrations improved from just one side, so I can only imagine how great both of them will feel.

 

That pressing tool is a time saver!
Oddly enough my boss doesn't let me use that to take out or put in ball joints of any sort. He has me using the other type of press (with the huge c-clamp looking thing).

How are the Raxles? I actually need to replace one of my CV shafts. It's not making noise but the torn boot bothers me.

I had those magnetic plugs too! Don't be like me and accidentally slip it in the wrong pan though... Now one of my plug ends is broken.

 

really? What could his reason be? It doesn't damage the bot like a fork and in two turns, bam...joint pops right out!

Honestly, I had a hard time swallowing the cost. If you have OEM axles to trade as cores, I'd suggest going with them...it's costing me an extra $160 in core charge BECAUSE all I have are these shitty chinese made ones on the car. Marty from Raxles told me to bury them in an unmarked grave. If I had gone OEM from the get go, I would have spent about $380...instead it's costing me $680 for raxles...but supposedly the joints are not re-ground or remanufactured, they use better grease and DEFINITELY better boots (much more robust...for longevity). The fact that I was already fucked and bought ONE, I decided to cough up the extra $160 and just go ahead and have the peace of mind that BOTH of my axles were raxles...I'm seriously having a hard time swallowing that cost, but it is what it is. I just want the car to drive smoothly, for a long long time and I do think the raxles are BETTER than oem.

I read up on which plug goes in which hole !!!

Plus, I'm supporting an American made axle manufacturer where the OWNER talks to you on the phone before placing an order...and if you have no cores, he can't help you. He's really really nice...

with cores your cost would be $520...so, really only $160 more than oem.

 

Honestly I have no clue... my boss is weird and wants things done his way.
(Which is weird cause... why even that that tool to begin with if it's not meant to be used for what it's made for?)

I'll have to see if Raxles is available in Canada then. I don't want china ones either :0 I'm still on stockies... so that's a good thing for core-trade-ins. Thanks for the info! I'll look around now. And yeah, definitely good piece of mind to have changed both. It's more ideal (but expensive) to replace both at the same time anyway.
edit: just saw your other post. that's pretty awesome. will definitely check them out now.

And... yeah... hahah I put the longer one in the wrong hole an now it's broken.

 

I wish mine was long enough to break off in the wrong hole.

Seriously though,
with shipping, it might be cost prohibitive, man...go oem...save that money!
Or call Marty at raxles and see what he says.

If I had to do it all over again, I PROBABLY would have just gone oem both sides and called it a day, but alas...I was told that my driver side one was a raxle already (mistaken which car it got changed on and I didn't know what to look for) and I figured I'd keep them both the same. THen once the passenger side one was in, my OCD would have bothered me to have one oem and one raxle. Plus, Marty was super nice and cool about not pressuring me into trying to tell me his was sooo much better. I marinated for a couple hours and decided that for a smooth ride for a long time, I'd cough up the money.

 

Man, if it were me, the scenario would have played out exactly the same. I'm really anal about things matching, so I would've bought the one Raxle to match, and then would have bought the second to actually have the matching set. It just sucks the price difference is so high.



Gotta pay to play though, as they say.

 

yay, you just made me feel better.
That vibration HAS to go away though, or I'll be upset. But the more I think about it, the more I'm sure it will. $680 for the problem to persist would make me pretty mad.

 

Well, ladies and gents...
the saga has ended and I feel totally vindicated. Aside from a few small nuisances to address in the coming months or years (oil pan seal/steering rack leak)...this car is finally a pleasure to drive. I've gotten used to the stage 3 clutch...and after some back and forth with Marty at Raxles and figuring out that I had shitty chinese made aftermarket axles on BOTH sides...I got both sides swapped to raxles (racing axles). I thought I had a driver side raxle so I went raxle...not knowing I would not be able to avoid the core charge...I went passenger raxle...find out after swapping I'm in $340 for just one side...decided to go raxle both sides...so $680. BUT, the car is butter fucking smooth now...acceleration is absolutely fantastic.

I'm happy...
for anyone else considering axles...if you go OEM, no core return obviously and it'll be about $360 shipped...if you go RAXLE and HAVE oem to ship back to him...$520 shipped...if you are fucked right in the ass really hard...and have to pay out of pocket for RAXLE...plan for $680.

Now, worth it, one might ask...I'll let the pictures do the talking. IMO, yes...for someone that is lowered with a car making 300WHP...I figured it was a good investment to have better axles. He uses a VERY robust rubber for the boots and a higher tolerance grease. As far as the joint itself, I read somewhere along my research that it's a stronger non-reground joint and should be pretty bulletproof but I'm not sure about that since I can't see for myself.

That is all, I am happy. Blue finally has started to make it's way into my heart...I think I needed black sold and gone to finally be able to let go and transition.

J.

Since I was going driver side, I figured I'd do the transmission fluid while at it. What a BITCH to crack the fill bolt...keeping Justin's whore er story in mind, I cracked it carefully...(glad I did because driver side, since it's directly IN the tranny, does leak once you get the axle off)



Fuck you China!!!


Decided to pull around in the shade and work outside with a few of my favorite girls.







Look at that gorgeous bitch!




SO much easier to work on an unloaded suspension...plan to jack from the center and not the sides if anyone ever tackles this themselves.




I took a closer look at my steering rack and saw that my leak is actually from a pinhole in the boot on the end, figured I'd give it a shot to fill it with some RTV...I wonder if just swapping the boot would fix my issue or if there's a failed o-ring inside that is why the boot is even filled with fluid. The steering rack works well...more resistance than my base TL had but I'm guessing that's part of the type S rack.



Looking like the fluid wasn't too old, as Justin had told me


Danny Komodo isn't a retard! Someone made note that the short magnetic skunk bolt goes in to the oil...turns out that can't be right because the long one hits something in the tranny before threading. Looks like that install will be happening in 30K miles from now.





Other than steering rack and oil pan seal...last thing I'll probably address on the next empty weekend will be a valve adjustment and swapping out the valve cover cover seals and new plugs.

Have a great weekend everyone, I'm in heaven right now.

 

Nice progress so far the car is looking really good. Sucks that you had to fork out the extra money on the axles but at least you have well made axles. Since your going to take off the valve covers have you thought about painting or powder coating the like familyguy did?

 

Those Raxles look so good!
And ah... The ol' classic too long for the hole.
It hits one of the gears or synchros or something when you put it in and thread it.
Hopefully you got the magnetic end out! Don't want that floating around in your tranny.

The shop I bought from actually even told me 'dont listen to most recommendations. Short one for tranny and long one for engine". But when it came time to do it I forgot... And oopsy. Poked something in that hole and now my long plug broke

Side note: You can still use the broken plug for the engine. The plug is magnetic straight through the base. But doesn't matter in the end since it'll be swapped out.

 

No kidding...dammit, wish I had known! Oh well, no big deal!

Stephen, I started reading up on vittuned...oh, that's happening for sure. It sounds amazing to me!

J.

Stephen, I MIGHT...but not likely...if they're dingy maybe I'll sand and paint them...but from what I gather the paint/powder doesn't adhere too well so I might leave well enough alone since that's a PITA to get on/off to repaint (unlike the engine intake cover)

 

That is one NICE axle..


Gonna shoot them an email and see if they have some love for the RL. I'm also battling vibrations…

 

Go for it, man...
what's the story on your axles? OEM? How old, how low are you?

 

Great work and thanks for sharing some tips on axles! I too have noticed the slight vibration during acceleration since lowering my car but its not that bad. Great to know what my options are now though. btw those shots the other day with the wax are money!!

 

Thanks you Ryan.
Yeah, these car CV's are VERY sensitive to height changes!

 

Car has 245k KM, no idea when or if they've been changed by previous owners, I'm leaning towards no. Car is lowered probably 3"ish.

I only feel it on the highway. Had warped rotors, fresh brakes cut out some vibration. Then I got my wheels rebalanced which solved a chunk of vibrations but it's still there taunting me.. ..

 

Well, what I have found to be the case in both my cars...is it's not always...but mainly under acceleration from like 2500 to 4000 RPM and mostly noticeable in 2nd and 3rd for a manual guy!

 

We'll see how it plays out..

 

Try new tires (or a new wheel/tire combo if that's easier) or check for bends before going any further than you have.
Then check for bearing noise, outter/inner tie rods and any end links.

 

This guy knows his shit!

 

since I lowered my car I have a tiny wobble at 30 km/hr and then it goes away. Weird. I have a brand new axle on the passenger side. but the drivers side is still OEM. 217xxx kms on it

 

I would never diagnose for you, but with the wear these things see, and the fact that you already changed one...

On black, I didn't get relief until I changed the passenger side. I always thought that meant it was because that's the one that had the wobble issue, but now that I've been through it twice, I really think it's because changing only ONE only solves half the problem. In my case probably less because the driver side one fixed 70% of the wobble vs passenger where I would guess it was 30% better. Total arbitrary numbers based on my experienced.

 

Sucks that the Raxles are almost twice the price as OEM, but it's good piece of mind to know you have the best parts installed. Glad to hear the car is driving smooth.

 

- Tires are less then a month old. Did the same thing with my winters.
- Bearings/Tie rods/end links were done less than 10k ago

Doing an oil change later today so I'll give everything a once over.

As for the Raxles, email response within the same day & … no love for the RL

Best part is OEM axles are $500ish US a piece..

 

The main problem for Marty (Raxles) is a lack of oem core trade ins, if he runs out, he literally has nothing to "make" up his stock.
Sorry, man!

 

Brother, you've been VERY busy....nice install.

 

I have, Steven...
but I'm all better now.