Constant Velocity (CV) joints help.

[OldCarGuy]

My all wheel drive 2005 Chevrolet Equinox has been making some troublesome noises. When making tight right or left turns, clunking noises can be heard. A whining is heard starting at 15 MPH that increasing with speed. My guess is that the outer CV joints is causing the first noise. And the inner CV joints and or wheel bearings are the culprits of the latter. But what do I know. And although I’m familiar with mechanics of antique cars as old as 1910, and repairs to all my daily drivers. All my modern cars have been either rear wheel drive of trucks and SUV’s with four wheel drive. Consequently I’ve never had to deal with CV joints.

My questions are:

1) The car has less than 40,000 miles. Are the CV joints bad?
2) How difficult can replacing them be?
I’m not a stranger to car repairs including rebuilding engines and transmissions. I have a two post lift and more than enough tools to restore antique cars. Including many pullers...
3) Do I need any special tools?
4)My local NAPA store doesn’t sell a service manual covering Chevrolet Equinox. Is there a good source on the internet for one?

 

[bimmer1980]

have you checked to see the condition of the boots?

I've replaced a few CV joints, and usually it's after the boots crack and dirt is allowed into the CV joint. As you mentioned, it's usually a clicking or clunking noise in the corners.

Depending on how your suspension is set up, you will have to pop a couple of the ball joints to get the CV shaft out....Sometimes you can get them out just by turning the wheel really tight, but I think I had to either pop the ball joint or lower the Macpherson strut down on my vehicle (it's been a few years since I did it...)

The outer CV joint is usually held in by a big nut. Once the nut is off, the CV spindle just pulls out the back side--hence the need to pop the ball joints to give you some room. Just make sure you have the right size socket for the nut--usually they are a fairly large size... 27mm to 34mm-ish...

The inner joint is usually the tough one. on my car, it was held in by a snap ring. I ended up using a pry bar to pop it out. Probably not the best way, but that is what worked. On other vehicles it might be held on by 6 bolts on a flange.

Once the CV shaft is out, I would recommend just swapping it for a new one. If it was just the boots that were bad, that isn't too bad to do. It just takes some finaicing to get the snap rings out and the CV joint apart... But if it's clicking, you might as well get a new one. They usually have a core charge, so it would be good to have the old one in hand to give to them.....

best of luck....

 

[krusty the clown]

i think i would consider the wheel bearings first due to your description of the rotational noise from 15mph. i have had some late model GM's with broken sway bar end links that will clunk on hard turns. of course i can't see it from here so.......

 

[flashpuppy]

I have a step by step guide from alldatapro.com. Shoot me your email and I can send it over to you.

 

[2chipped]

I replaced a lot on nissans and toyotas , generally if you remove the spindle nut,lower ball then the joint out of the lower control arm next decide if you will replace the outer joint or the halfshaft, if the halfshaft is replaced use it as a slide hammer push the cv in then yank, this works if it has a retaining ring and not a clip. my02cts

 

[regguy1]

i think i would consider the wheel bearings first due to your description of the rotational noise from 15mph. i have had some late model GM's with broken sway bar end links that will clunk on hard turns. of course i can't see it from here so.......

I agree check wheel bearings first.
The CV boots on late model cars are thermoplastic and last much longer than years past. When you drive down the road swerve to right and left, the pitch of noise should vary, most often this indicates a wheel bearing.

 

[sam08861]

This is pretty easy. It took me about 2 hours of actual work the 1st time I did it, (plus about 9hrs of internet searching/reading every snag!) If I had to do it again, I think I could do them in about 30-45 minutes (20 minutes if I had a pneumatic setup)

Don't know what your particular setup is, but hopefully you can get by w/removing just the wheels and the inner ends of the axles. Some things I learned...

Just buy a half shaft instead of a CV rebuild kit, as it is much easier (should save several hours of labor and messy grease packing) and these are pretty cheap and a whole lot easier than rebuilding and some of the joints themselves are quite a puzzle. ($100 vs $50 for cv repair, reusing same axle for my 4wd audi 8cyl, sure it's less for others) Also, this is a part where the action is.. Once removed from where the rubber hits the road and you don't want any 'might be ok' assembly here. Buying a halfshaft takes out the guesswork.

Loosen the axle nut before you raise the wheel (A lot of folks have snapped breaker bars, I use a cheap auto parts store torque wrench, for which I'm sure I've destryoed the reading, but these are much touger than any breaker bar. I didn't want to use a 4-5 foot cheater bar, so I used a hydraulic jack to lift the tq wrench handle when it was parallel to the ground or lower... lot less elbow grease, I think these were torqued to 400ft lbs or something).

It doesn't hurt to also loosen the lugs before raising to keep the car wobble when on jacks to a minimum. Use 2 jack stands and put a tire under the car to protect the running gear, which will be vulnerable with the axle removed (not to mention yourself).

Be prepared to get dirty and use PB or some other solvent on all nuts 24 hrs before and give them all a solid but gentle whack with hammer/screwdriver before and after spraying as this helps the solvent prenetrate and will make your life much easier when it comes time to remove.

Unbolt the inner end first, an if your're lucky, the end going into the hub will just slide out without having to remove other suspension bits.

Search the internet for your model/year, as I got some great tips for minimizing the effort and removing the least amout of or easier to remove/replace parts.

Wear ****** old clothes and eye protection as it's messy down there. (especially this time of year, and the concrete ground is f*^%$%g cold if you don't have a lift or low profile creeper.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

sam,

I can tell you are still a little new here.... You really need to check out old car guys garage thread. A lack of equipment is not as big a problem for him as it is for most of the rest of us here...

 

[sam08861]

sam,

I can tell you are still a little new here.... You really need to check out old car guys garage thread. A lack of equipment is not as big a problem for him as it is for most of the rest of us here...

Thanks for the tip, I just saw his setup (very nice oldcarguy!).

Just trying to help/didn't mean to offend, and hope it also helps someone in the future who may have the same question but might not in be the same situation.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

No offense, I was just having some fun with you. OCG's garage is the envy of most everyone here and most of wish we lived a lot closer to him and that we were best buds just to be able to get in there. I like all of the equipment even though I couldn't run half of it. LOL, well everything except for his crappy trailer with the bad door that is...

 

[pgreen]

GM trucks (and some cars) have a steering shaft clunk. This is fixed by a different lube. Not sure exactly how or where...

The whining is, I would guess, a wheel bearing. GM uses **** wheel bearings, and I am a GM owner for many years. My Saturn Vue went through 5 in 120K miles...

Like others have said, if the CV joint boots are not cracked or ripped, it is most likely not a CV. Most of these are rated for well over 100K miles. But, if it is a CV, do the whole shaft, way easier.

Phil

 

[robertearl]

Instead of trying to fix the CN joint, go to O'Reiley's and get a rebuilt half shaft. The ones for my Corvette were only $60. That is alot less trouble if it is the CV joint.

Reb

 

[Paul_NJ]

I'm not sure what a Chevy Equinox is, but I just replaced the front wheel bearings on my Yukon 4WD. I found good help, and even some how to pictorials onthe following forums. Perhaps you may find a similar forum for your vehicle.

http://www.fullsizechevy.com/forums/
http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/

In my case, I experienced a grinding/growling sound as I slowed from 10 mph to a stop. The standard test is to jack a front wheel, and try wobbling the tire while holding at 12 and 6 positions. Any motion indicates a bad wheel bearing. My understanding is that CV joints make clunking sounds when they go, as you mentioned.

Living in NJ, where they salt the roads before it even begins to snow, the most difficult part of the job was removing the wheel bearing/hub, after removing the retaining bolts. Your's may be different, but 6 point 15 mm socket/box wrench for the retaining bolts, and a 1 3/8 inch socket for the main axle nut were necessities. The only way I was able to finally wedge the hubs out was using an air hammer.

 

[MP&C]

My nephew has replaced his "rebuilt" half shafts after one being in for 12 months, the other for 4 months. The are under warranty still, and the Auto parts store will gladly give you another. If it lasts the same amount of time, is it worth using another rebuilt? He didn't think so and gave up the warranty to buy brand new OEM's the second time around. He was told that the rebuilder's get CV cores from the junk yards or core returns. They get cleaned up, new boot put on, and pumped full of grease. For a $10 core (what the JY gets) and about the same for a boot, they have enough profit in there even at the rebuilt price to roll the dice that these things will last past the warranty.

 

[OldCarGuy]

Some pictures of the CV joints. Looks as if the boots are in good shape. There is no play in the wheel bearings when I grab the circumference of the tire. I drove the car this morning. The whining noise is starts at 15 MPH and increases with speed. Shifting to neutral doesn't effect it either. Also swaying car left to right doesn't change the sound at all.

To eliminate the chance that some of the noise was coming from the original equipment Bridestone tires. I replaced them with Michelin's. Here's the old tires.

 

[Mike83]

GM trucks (and some cars) have a steering shaft clunk. This is fixed by a different lube. Not sure exactly how or where...

Phil

The steering shaft fix is quite simple. I just sprayed white lithium grease down the intermediate steering shaft from under the dash. I did not remove the whole shaft and lube with the GM grease. However, even going that far does not look too daunting. My method fixed the clunk fine, though.

 

[Stuart in MN]

If you're still looking for a shop manual, you can get one from www.helminc.com . They produce most of the OEM shop manuals these days. However, I see the 2005 Equinox manual costs $135.00.

 

[BigE]

I typically use Haynes manuals unless I'm getting very in depth with a vehicle or plan to keep it indefinitely (buy the Helms for that). They're good enough for repair work on DD's. They're available at AutoZone, Advance Auto and numerous places on the internet. Here's the Haynes website for your vehicle.

Click Here

I wouldn't expect the CV joints to go so quickly. They're not indestructable, but they usually go closer to 100k or more. A word of advice should you decide to replace them, keep the old ones until you're certain the new ones are correct. I came in on the middle of a replacement on an 03 Impala. My father called me for help because he couldn't get them to slide into the transmission. Turns out the splines were slightly different, not allowing them to go in. Since he still had the old ones, I was able to confirm. Once he got the correct ones, they went in like butter.

One last thought, with that low mileage, wouldn't they still be covered under warranty? If not, you may get the Chevy dealer to cover it under policy since it's such low mileage. Of course, the better your relationship with the dealer, the more likely this is to work.

 

[firemancooter]

Is yours all wheel drive? My wife has a 2005 AWD and the carrier bearing on the drive shaft to the rear differential is going bad. This is causing the squeak from about 15 mph up as you describe. I went to the GM dealer to buy a replacement and they will not sell me one. They are evidently having problems with the parts and have not figured out a fix. Good luck





Ron

 

[tyrell2004]

I agree with Previous post who think CV boots look good and not likely to fail that early.

I think Ron may be on to something.

That said, I have done mine (front) on my 4wd 4-runner with 250K three times and by turning the wheel and slightly jacking the hub end, I can compress and remove the axle and replace with rebuilt half axle with out having to disconnect any steering/ suspension components. Barely 1/8" clearance, but it saves lots of time.

 

[OldCarGuy]

i think i would consider the wheel bearings first due to your description of the rotational noise from 15mph. i have had some late model GM's with broken sway bar end links that will clunk on hard turns. of course i can't see it from here so.......

You guys were right one! The wheel bearing was the culprit. I went out and purchased two SKF Wheel bearing hubs that were manufactured in the USA. Even though I could purchase the Chinese units for less than half the price. They were still half the dealer's OEM price of $300.00 each. I can only wonder if Chevy has their hubs made in China?

Before the car was lifted. Loosen the front wheel bearing nuts. I did this using a 3/4” breaker bar and a 1 5/16” hex socket. Once the car is on the lift, remove the wheel.

Next remove the brake caliper and disc. Not wanting to bleed the brakes, I didn't want to take the brake line off the caliper. I placed a small screw driver in a handy hole in the A frame that held the caliper safely out of harms way. Disconnect the ABS brake wire plug and tucked away.

The axle retaining nut is removed. Along with three bolts that hold the bearing hub into the steering yoke.

This is where the fun begins. The winter's salt rusted the hub solidly into place. I placed three longer bolts and tried beating with no luck. I considered removing the entire steering yoke and pressing it out in my arbor press. But continued hammering around the split line using a large chisel finally did the trick. The topside gave broke away first.

Picture of axle with bearing hub removed. I cleaned up the years of corrosion from the mating surfaces using a small wire wheel on an electric drill...

New hub in place. Then install brake disc and caliper, and axle bolt. Along with wheel. I waited to tightened the axle nut to the factory torque settings once the vehicle was on the ground.

Now onto the other side. After working all morning on the side with the bad bearing. And even though it's recommended to replace both sides when one bearing goes bad. Did I really want to spend the rest of the day replacing the side that wasn't bad? I decided to go for it. I couldn't believe it. The bearing hub actually was free once I removed the three bolts. In fact it was only a matter of a few minutes to finish the whole side. What a pleasant surprise!

When it was up in the air, I change the oil and filter. Lowered the car, and torqued the axle nuts. Then took her for a test drive. Problem solved and drives like a new car.

 

[rburke65]

OCG thanks VERY much for the pictures. Guys can type all day long but as they say,...One picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks for taking the time to pass on your knowledge, wisdom and hints. Thank you.