Drive shaft stuck extended out after control arm replacement

condor · Post by **condor** » 03 Oct 2010, 10:05

'05 XC70: After replacing my lower control arm on the passenger side the drive shaft seems to be stuck extended too far out from the joint within the inner boot. The inner boot is extended fairly far with the bellows extended quite a bit further than the how the bellows look on the outer boot. In doing the control arm, I had removed the two bolts that attached the strut to the knuckle in order to get as mush play as possible when wrestling the lower control arm and ball joint back together. I am assuming in that in the process of wrestling the control arm and ball joint bolt to align, without the knuckle being attached to the strut, I inadvertently angled the knuckle too far past the travel limit of the inner joint on the drive shaft. I have tried various angles of the control arm height (with the assistance of a jack) and steering linkage, while also jiggling the rotor around, to see if I could get the drive shaft to align and slide back in. No luck.

I don’t know how the inner joint is configured, so I’m working blind on how to expect it to line up and contract again underneath the boot.

Any suggests are much appreciated.

In the mean time, I’m going to detach the outer tie rod from the knuckle to see if having that extra play with the knuckle will help. I’m doubtful as I should be able to get the right angle with the steering linkage attached, but maybe.

From there I guess it would be remove the right drive axle and either get it to align and reinstall, have it repaired or replace it if I somehow totally ruined it, or if the $130 part from IPD is cheaper than a repair anyway.

What a PIA I’ve made for myself on what I thought was going to be a couple of hour job!

Post by **JimBee** » 03 Oct 2010, 11:57

If you have a few days leeway, you might want to order a boot and grease kit from FCPGroton. Cut the old boot off and remove the bands that hold its ends. Then you'll see how it's put together. My 850 had a split boot so I did this. Mine has a circlip that holds the inner part of the shaft into the "roller joint". It's hard to imagine you pulled that apart, but if so, the axel is splined and I assume you could slip it back together. While you're in there, of course, you'd want to flush and repack the joint before replacing the boot. Then you'll have a rebuilt axel that should last like a new one (assuming you don't find the "shell" in which the balls roll around to be scored). I think cost around $12.00 Good luck.

gjz30075 · Post by **gjz30075** » 09 Feb 2011, 11:27

Thought I'd bring up this old post because I, too , had this problem on the rh side trying to replace the control arm. I cut the boot circlips and pulled the boot back to see why the joint wouldn't go back to together. It's an incredibly simply joint and it looked like I just had to wrestle it back in. Jacking up the strut was near impossible because there's nothing to guide it straight up and the pressure from the spring is pushing it down. So I compressed the spring using external spring compressors enough to wrestle the hub and axle up and with my third hand

I managed to rotate the axle enough to push it back in the joint. I then quickly attached the control arm to keep it in place.

Post by **matthew1** » 09 Feb 2011, 12:43

Thanks for this input, Greg.

When I did my control arms I was worried about the joints getting pushed out from the force of the spring. When the control arm comes off there's little holding (or nothing, depending how much you've detached) the joint in, and we all know the springs push hard. For what it's worth to everyone out there, they push far, too.

I used both your method of spring compressors and a jack stand under the wheel hub/rotor to prevent this.

Jonnyt · Post by **Jonnyt** » 28 Feb 2011, 04:21

Oh if only I'd read this yesterday morning!!!

I've got a V70 2003 and doing the driver's side (driver's right side of the car) the joint at the end of the drive shaft has come out of the CV joint at the gearbox end. It wasn't any sort of spectacular failure so am pretty sure that there isn't a circlip that I've broken, but could someone just confirm whether there is a circlip preventing the shaft from coming out of the joint?

If there isn't it should just slide back - easy.....

ed7 · Post by **ed7** » 28 Feb 2011, 17:05

The circlip should be on the shaft. You should have resistance refitting the shaft to the joint.
A minor wrap with a dead blow mallet should do the trick.
Ed