PathyGig12

It won’t hit while spinning because I’ll be able to line it up with the ball joint when I’m reinstalling the axle and see if there’s enough clearance. I’m not going to let it spin without knowing that it clears, that would be quite dumb

This did occur to me but I figured there is only one way to find out. If it does make contact I’ll just source a different band so it’s no biggie

Rockford boots installed. I snapped one of the large clamps while crimping it, so I had to use a hose clamp instead. Should work fine but I’ll keep an eye on it. I also used hose clamps for the 4 smaller clamps around the shaft because for whatever reason it was very hard to get the provided crimp clamps tight in that size. These ones fit perfectly so I’m not too worried about them This job was fairly easy overall, the only tricky part is that you need a jaw puller for the inner joint bearings. The sucky part, of course, is all the pounds of grease you have to get off and replace. The boot kits came with green grease packets for both the inners and outers. I heard somewhere that you need yellow grease for one joint and green for the other? I went with moly CV grease from StaLube for the inner joints and the green stuff for the outers. Hopefully it’s fine. I like that you don’t have to mess with the outer joint at all since you can slide both boots on from the inner side. Time will tell if the rockfords we’re worth it. They seem pretty beefy The main thing is all of the clamps are very tight and I wasn’t able to pull the boots loose with any sort of stretching that the CV will do on the truck, even snapping it aggressively to maximum angle several times in a row. I’m happy with that. Now I’m just waiting on the replacement hub snap ring that I ordered

That’s fantastic man. As long as they aren’t too heavily used it sounds like they should be great

Going back to the first post I think you mentioned there was no upgrade done to the rear springs? If you want to eliminate that sag Id recommend the land rover 9449 coils. I think you should be able to get them shipped there and they seem to just shrug off the weight of anything short of a boat. I was fully loaded for my last trip with at least 500 lbs counting two people, two pets, two full sized spares, 5 gallons of spare gas, 7 gallons of water, a trunk full of tools and spare parts, coolant, atf, oil, power steering fluid, plus 3 suitcases and a large metal framed backpack on the roof. And the 9449s only compressed about an inch. So the truck ended up riding perfectly level and handled the moab trails without even getting close to bottoming out. The coils make the ride a little rougher when you’re low on weight but I don’t really mind it at all, I think it gives it better handling characteristics anyway I don’t have any experience with airbags but I’ve heard people say that they are a bit of pain and will eventually fail whereas the 9449s will probably outlast the truck

It’s been off since the trip

Just ordered the boots from Rockford. I believe the guy said they had 6 of each left so now there should be 4 still on the shelves if anyone wants them. I took the torn boots off of my OEM axles and I’m trying to figure out the best way to separate the joints from the shaft. I can’t seem to find a thread about it on the forum but maybe I’m not looking hard enough. The inner joint looks like it just pops off if you give it some force with a claw puller, am I on the right track? Surprisingly the grease inside looks very clean and there’s not much crap inside so I think the joints should be fine. As for grease, I have some of the Sta-lube CV grease but I’ve heard you need different types of grease for the inner and outer joints? Something about green and yellow

Yeah that’s an option for sure. Just don’t have a whole lot of time these days. Most of my free time for working on the truck is at night after work Ill have to schedule a day to hit up some junk yards and look for the replacement rear hatch as well.

Trying to figure out which stickers I like better. I might take some off depending on whether I like the glow in the dark ones or not

Switch panel installed. It was shockingly easy compared to my previous rats nest because the switches came prewired to have a shared ground and shared positive, so all I had to do was run the signal wires to each switch and cut out all of the old wiring that I no longer need. They work great and I love the new look. The color is fairly close but, just a little off I’ve got it hooked up to the main forward lights, fogs, reverse lights, and my red map lights so far. The camera is going to go to the “radar” switch lol, but I need to repair the wiring first since it got messed up at some point while driving. I’m saving the alien torpedo switch for something really cool, haven’t decided yet I do need to do something about the old holes for my previous panel, thats gonna bug the hell out of me

Yeah that’s my guess as well. I’ll source a new one before reinstalling the CVs. But in the mean time while they’re out I’ll take the opportunity to reboot them with the Rockford boots. I just need to call tomorrow and place an order Ive painted the switch panel metallic charcoal to match the fenders but haven’t had a chance install it yet. Waiting on switches still

Yup, the atx14a has its pros and cons. Demystifying it has been one of my main focuses and I’m constantly trying to learn more about what it does in different situations and then pass that on to others so it becomes less of a black box and diagnosing issues becomes easier to do

I believe the problem here is that I fell for misinformation about manual hubs. I distinctly remember reading about how they help save CV boots from tearing, and I suppose I just ran with that idea without looking into it more. So I think the issue everyone has with what I’m saying is the fact that it’s predicated on the idea of manual hubs being boot-savers, which I have come to realize isn’t actually true, even though I’ve seen it said before. Nevertheless, I do still think that it makes sense from a physics standpoint that a non spinning CV will experience less boot wear overall (all other things being equal), even if that reduction in wear is not as significant as I initially thought, seeing as how the stretching can also occur from suspension travel and turning. Since the rotation causes additional stretching and compressing of any given point on the boot for every revolution, it stands to reason that it must cause some amount of additional wear compared to a boot that is only experiencing the non-spinning wear from the lift stretching itself. If you disagree, that’s fine. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind, just explaining my reasoning Anyway, I’ve already caused way too much disruption to the thread and for that I apologize. Let’s move on

I appreciate your input as always. I’d like to hear what you think might be abnormal about my set up to cause premature boot failure? Even just judging by some of the other responses to this thread from users with AC coils, it seems that if anything, your current boots are the real outliers here. That’s awesome that you’ve got good ones that have lasted so long though.

I didn’t end up getting any pics last night because my hands were covered in grease and it was 2am so I just wanted to get everything done. I’ll try to snap a pic of the damage to the warn hub

I was replacing the control arms last night and ran into an issue. After putting the new ones on I found out the lower ball joint on the right side was completely shot and had a lot of clunking movement when I twisted the wheel back and forth, so I ended up needing to take the CV shaft out to get the ball joint swapped over to the spare I had. When I went to remove the cap from the warn hub so I could access the snap ring on the shaft, I noticed that it was nowhere to be found. After a bit of fiddling I realized the hub wasn’t working properly and was locked to the shaft even though it was supposed to be unlocked. Uh oh. Eventually I figured out that the snap ring had wedged itself in between the shaft and the center ring inside the hub, so it took me half an hour to get it sorted out. I had to take out the inner hub ring, and then pry the snap ring until it had enough clearance so that I could hammer the axle out the back side with a brass punch. The ring was totally mangled and in front of the bearing washer/plate there was a pile of fine metal shavings from where it was grinding the housing of the warn hub. I’m baffled as to what could cause the snap ring to get stuck in the hub. I always install it the same way, and there shouldn’t be enough clearance to get it stuck in there. I’m also wondering whether I should even replace it? Since the warn is chewed up I’m switching to the mile markers I have in the garage but is it possible I could run into engagement issues without the snap ring? I know there’s no way for the axle to pull out without the snap ring since there’s a lot of clearance required to pull it out, but if it isn’t in quite the right spot it might affect the ability of the hub to lock. I’m just worried it will happen again and it sucks not knowing what caused it On the plus side, with the new ball joint and control arms installed, the truck is completely free of any clunking over rough terrain and there’s no more steering wheel shimmy on the freeway. The other side ball joint was perfectly tight so I wonder if this was just a fluke quality control issue. They’re from 1A Auto, so not the highest quality parts.

Yeah I’ll be placing an order for them some time this week. Even in the best case scenario of no CV rotation with the shaft removed, you’re right that the stretching will still exist so I want the best boots available. I wonder if anyone who has installed them could weigh in on their longevity? I can’t remember who has them

Yeah those things look way too beefy to work. Even if they fit they would probably made the truck ride like a wagon from the 1800s

See now at least that makes sense. The turning and suspension travel definitely causes the stretching as well, I hadn’t even considered those. But it doesn’t mean that the boot wear isn’t also caused by spinning. When you turn a CV and watch the boot, one side is compressed while the other is stretched. At an extreme angle, this means a lot of stretching and compressing of each part of the boot as you drive. Whether this wears on it more than the other motions you mentioned, I don’t know. Regardless, it does make me wonder whether there are boots that might give more room for this stretching and last longer. I know they make high angle boots for Toyota’s but I don’t think anything exists for our trucks. It would probably have to be something designed for a larger and longer CV joint and then adapted to still clamp to the R50 CVs

I don’t find myself arguing with anyone at the moment. I’m honestly a bit confused why this is so controversial. I was simply giving my experience with boot wear and warning those who didn’t know about the behavior of the auto mode Tcase with manual hubs. In fact, since I found this out I have been in agreement with you that the manual hubs are mostly a waste of money with this set up. I haven't gotten any better mileage either, and I don’t wheel recklessly enough to need to change half shafts on the trail. It’s interesting that you mention that the boot wear is due to the excessive stretching of the boots from the amount of lift alone, and not related at all to the rotation of the axles. So what you’re saying is if I took a brand new CV and left it on my desk with the angle stretched to maximum, the boots should be expected to spontaneously tear after a few months of sitting like that? I’m no expert but something elastic doesn’t typically break from being held at a constant, normally it’s from being stretched and compressed repeatedly, which is what happens with the boots while the CVs are spinning at extreme angles. Again, I don’t have any research to back this up, it just makes the most sense in my mind from a physics standpoint. I’ll make sure to keep an eye on my boots while the front shaft is removed to see if they still split when completely stationary, but I have my doubts. It’s possible it’ll happen eventually due to environmental factors like the rubber drying out, being affected by road grime and salt, but that sort of thing will likely take a lot longer to happen

Exactly

Yes I know that the AC springs are maxing the suspension and that this is the cause of the boot failure. My point is that people who use the AC springs up front need to be aware of the fact that the auto mode TCase still spins the front even with manual hubs. This info is important so that people don’t expect the hubs to save them from boot wear. We are in total agreement that with any other springs the boot wear would be a lot less, but with the AC springs specifically, the only way to stop the excessive boot wear is to either change springs or make sure the front isn’t spinning most of the time. And this isn’t being accomplished by manual hubs when you have the auto mode Tcase. That’s my entire point. When I said that I was “pissed” about the TCase still spinning, it was due to the fact that this information was not common knowledge when I went to buy the hubs. Everyone was listing heavily reduced boot wear as a benefit of the hubs, which turned out to not be completely true for this set up. That’s why I was annoyed and why I want to continue letting others know. Many of us cannot afford to do a SFD, or it is too intense of an operation for our skill level. People naturally still want maximum lift, and often choose to run the AC coils for this reason, so it’s a piece of info that I believe is important for them to consider. As far as my personal boot wear experience being abnormal, I don’t believe anything else is wrong with the truck. Like you said, it’s from the AC springs and nothing else. Since I don’t want to change to different springs, I’m leaving the front shaft off for most of my driving. Very easy to put it back on for wheeling trips.

I disagree. I’ve been through three sets of CVs since I put on the manual hubs and the boots always split within a couple of months. On one set of Cardone CVs, the boots gave out after just 3 weeks. Changing the shafts themselves has been easier for me than doing just the boots, so I have yet to give that a go and can’t comment on the difficulty of doing so. Even if the shafts are spinning at a slower rate they are still spinning constantly, which certainly wears the boots faster than not spinning at all. The exact rate of wear is going to depend on the angles of the joints and the material of the boots. I don’t see how my personal experience with manual hubs and boot wear qualifies as “misinformation”, so I’ll continue spreading it so that others have as much info as possible. That’s the point of this forum, isn’t it? We already have few enough active members sharing their pathfinder experiences, I think every bit of info we can get out there is going to be helpful for others who are looking to build up their R50s

Not necessarily. For those with the auto mode dial on the dash, the CVs will continue to spin from residual drag in the case and the boot wear will be the same even with the manual hubs. But if you have the part time transfer case with the short stick for 4WD, the manual hubs will stop the CVs from spinning. This pissed me off when I found out so I’ve been trying to spread the word everywhere I can. My passenger side CV boots are torn but I have the OEM shafts with the best range of motion so I want to keep them as long as possible. When I do the rebooting I’m going to place an order with Rockford to make sure I get the high quality thermoplastic ones, and then I plan to leave the hubs unlocked and have my front drive shaft in the cargo compartment, only putting it back on for wheeling/snow driving to save the boots. I don’t mind tightening 8 bolts a handful of times a year to save myself from constantly buying new CVs. The thermoplastic boots will last much longer but they will still eventually split if I leave the front drive shaft installed

fresh off the boat