Axle-Shmacksle

Even before I bought this G I knew there would likely be issues with the front axle.  Some say it's the Achilles-heel of these vehicles but after zero maintenance for 200K miles, I'd call it about time for some service.  Amazingly, I've been driving this heavily worn axle, off-road and on, without any problems.  Still, I knew it needed attention, so today was tear-down day.

Others have made step-by-step tutorials about this service so I won't attempt to do it again.  The following is just a chronicle of my G in progress.

I started by putting the front end on four jack stands - this thing is heavy & I don't want it falling on my head!  Next, the wheel came off and I pulled the axle bearing dust cap to see what's inside.

Next I removed the brake caliper and the two bolts that hold the brake line retainer so I could zip-tie the caliper up and out of the way.

I removed the phillips-head screw that holds the brake rotor onto the hub, but the rotor would not budge.  After some penetrating oil, blow-torching, and some gentle hammer blows the rotor reluctantly came off.

Now I got stuck.  You need a special tool to loosen the axle nut, but I planned to replace these with the newer (W463) style anyway so I just used a chisel and butchered it off.

The hub popped out easily once that nut, the locking washer, and the 2nd nut were removed.

Thankfully, no surprises here, although the grease smelled burned and there were streaks of rust throughout.  The grease seal was a bit tough to remove due to it's size but it finally came out a little worse for wear.

To get the steering knuckle off you need to remove one of the swivel bearing pins - the top one already had two bolts removed so I popped that one off more easily, despite them being VERY rusted-stuck.  I then removed the drag link and tie rod.

After rotating the housing down and lifting it out, the messy burned grease mess was exposed.  It took several old t-shirts to wipe off the nasty grease and reach the somewhat cleaned axle housing.

If you look carefully you can see the red-orange colored outer axle tube seal - this is apparently a later style axle because some have that seal at the differential.  The steering knuckle had it's own grease collection, and the pivot bearings were pretty rusty, but they did seem to move freely.

The last part to remove was the CV joint & axle shaft.  To my surprise, this simply pulled straight out with ease.  Then, however, I was stunned to see that there was no rubber boot on my CV!  Where did it go?  In the following photo you can see the metal straps holding the inner and outer lips of the boot... but the boot itself is gone!  I did find a few fragments of it in that greasy mess I'd removed, but wow.  I've never seen a whole boot just disappear like that.  And I've been driving all over the place like that.  Wow.

So... now I have a big list of parts to order, and an even bigger bill to pay.  Fortunately, everything will be back on line and in good shape soon.  I'll be adding a full brake system rebuild while the calipers are off, so this G will be one step closer to the Rubicon this year.