“Upgrade” CV axles?

Had my ‘04 lifted about 2” about 10K miles ago. Finally noticed inner boot failure on my passenger side. There are less than 100K miles on the odo and CV/axles are original to this truck. Based on age, I’m thinking it best to replace both front axles and would appreciate your thoughts. Should I buy OEM or is there a longer lasting option? Thanks.

 

OEM are the best way to go.

Replace your boots and do the boot slide mod.

Don't get suckered into getting rid of your cv axles.

 

@Kwikvette

Many would suggest keeping OEM and rebooting them.

 

Posted while I was writing mine, LOL.

 

On the subject of CV axles, I will say I've run O'Reilly's "ET" variants for roughly 10 months and have put over 20k miles on them.

Here when I bought them new -



After install -



And after 9 months of heavy use -



I've gone off-roading quite a bit with them in mud, snow, and dirt.

Aside from the inner boots ripping pretty quickly 4-5 months in, with my 2.5" lift, they're very stout.

The design is what's really unique about them.

Here it is on paper -



Here they are in action -

https://youtu.be/oKcnKuKpPOg

My stock UCA's and King shocks being the inhibitor because these cv axles definitely allow a lot of travel -

 

Lifting your truck (changing the resting height) is extra hard on old rubber in CV boots. Replacing that rubber with new Toyota rubber is likely to last a long time, assuming your lift isn't some outrageous height - which at 2", it sounds like it isn't, so that's the way I'd recommend going... The same tear happened to mine after my lift (as it did to many others as well), but after rebooting the 19 year old axles, they've been great ever since.

This is a step-by-step guide on the job of replacing the boots, and has links to the OEM boot kit you'll want to purchase.

How-to: Rebooting a Tacoma CV Axle – ADVENTURETACO

 

Took me a minute to find an explanation of the CV boot mod. A vid by Timmy the Tool Man helped me understand pretty clearly the process soup to nuts. https://youtu.be/vcCT4UgFUTw

@Kwikvette Have you had longer life with O’Reilly ETs reset with the boot mod? Might be worthwhile for me to put those in and set up the OEM for future replacement

@turbodb, Thank you. I definitely expected the CV boots to give up the ghost after lifting an older truck. I appreciate you sharing the links

 

Just my opinion, but I'm not a fan of the boot slide mod. It stretches out the rubber, putting it under more stress than normal, and that stress - in my experience - leads to more cracking. My recommendation is always to reboot without doing the boot slide, if the reason your boots split originally was due to being old and then subjected to a lift.

Only if you split the new boots would I consider "doing something different," possibly the boot slide mod.

 

I would not buy the O'Reilly cv axles expecting to do any boot slide mod or anything of the sort.

The cv axles haven't been out for more than a year and a half or so, so not many people even own them. With that said, they also use a different size boot than your OEM cv axles would.

Only reason why I bought the 'ET' cv axles was because; I had decided to trick out my 4R and wanted to get all my wear items up to snuff, as well as trying out something 'heavier-duty' for the crap I'd put my 4R through. Last but not least, they carry a lifetime warranty so I can just replace them...even just for a torn boot. Due to other circumstances, I can't pull my cv axle out to replace it so I'm running both with torn boots for the meanwhile.

Once I figure out a boot replacement option (which someone linked me a few weeks back), I'll post up my experience.

 

Thanks, Dan. I’m glad to hear different opinions. Makes sense for me to take a careful look at whether the driver side inner baffles are rubbing before committing to a mod.

 

So what's the verdict? Did they fix their faulty boots?

 

I swapped them under warranty and got rid of my 4Runner for something better

 

Should have went with the IFS elimination kit. You won't have to worry about LBJ, CV axle or anything like that.

 

I miss IFS so much I'm thinking of doing an IFS swap on the Land Cruiser

 

I heard the 200 easily swap over to the 80

Maybe all you need to do is a frame swap? 5.7 in a 80 will be sweet.

 

No way, too small.

I'd go LS7 if I ever truly did a V8 swap. My last Corvette was an LS3, and my current Z is already a 5.7

 

May as well do an IRS swap

 

Shame.

 

Naw.

Land Cruiser > 4Runner