CV AXLE Comparisons:

Greetings Fellow First-Genners!

My lovely Tacoma had her CV boot ripped open right before getting home

Which CV axle are yall recommending?

Not looking for anything crazy. No point of going all out on CVs in my eyes. I'm probably gonna just buy 2 sets and not worry.

Hoped my truck still had OE CVs but she has Duralast Remans... the green shafted ones... the boots were supposed to resist "normal cracking which affects other boots"...

thanks guys hope all yall get some muddin this weekend

 

Check out CVJ axles in Denver.

Or just reboot it yourself. It’s not all that hard. There are lots of videos.
@Timmah! has loads of them.

 

Thanks for the reply bro!

Rebooting seems like a complete waste.. of time and money. I'd rather replace the whole assembly at this point. if anything I can use these as spares on the trail like them Aussies

 

Those duralast CVs are trash. Shorter than OEM and not even close to the durability as stock. You can just have them fully rebuilt for like $80 at a shop.

 

Hah! Knew these were trashy cheap ones. Freakin green shafts man. What are you thinkin', Duralast lol...

 

And not to mention. Won’t flex like OEM.

 

which brand is closest to OE spec? thank you for your input, your knowledge is our power

 

Gonna give CVJ a call tomorrow... they seem to know a thing or 2 about CVs lol

 

NAPA MaxDrive

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/NMD944013

$59.99 each
lifetime warranty
brand new (not reman)
no core charge

Advice-

Spend the extra $40 and hour of install time to replace both inner axle seals with genuine Toyota OEM seals. Your local dealer will have them in stock.

 

No one. I called cvj before and they said don’t make any for Tacoma yet. Even tho they advertised on a Toyota only magazine. Find some at a junk yard or sometimes guys sell theirs on here for the guys going LT and have 4x4.

 

Yea aftermarket CVs are junk. They split at the bearing cage without fail. OEM ones often split the shaft itself. Pretty significant difference in strength. If your lifted and off-road it, I would try to find a OEM used from car-part or a good rebuild. Then again it’s only 30 mins to change a shaft with a lifetime warranty from autozone.

If you have stock tires and do dirt roads with a couple mud pits you will be fine. The once nice thing about autozone remans is you will break the bearing cage (see my photo below) All you do is take a screw driver you can pop the boot off the hub and axle sides. Turn the wheel lock to lock a couple times and pull the center shaft out. leaving a stub shaft in the hub and diff. Thus you can drive anywhere you want in 2wd without causing any damage. It’s awfully nice to break both front shafts, get winched out and drive 4 hours home with about 5 mins of work.

 

old OEM 1st gen shafts used to be green in the center. Think your all set.

 

Damn im gonna have to check on this in the morning

 

Yeah I just re-booted a spare set of OEM off my ‘96 and the shaft is green. New boots/grease and they are like new, 310K miles on them

 

I have Toyota OEM CVs and the axle shafts are green...are you sure they weren't OEM?

 

I actually cannot remember if the shaft said REMAN or I'm imagining things. Either way, the axle will need to be pulled to access the inner boot, if it does turn out to be a Toyota axle..

 

True. I just went through this today myself. My inner driver's side boot exploded yesterday and I got the whole axle replaced today, might as well since the axle has to come out.

 

My OEM shafts were green.