CV axles shot. Wobbling badly. Why?

Been having some problems lately with a light wooping noise on rotation and a vibration in the front end of my truck. Over the past week or so, I've been hearing these load noises like a banging or a popping when turning or turning and backing out of the driveway. I took it into the mechanic today and they discovered my front cv axles had a horrible wobble to them. It was so bad, that the front diff was shaking and losening up the bolts up front.

Is this normal when a cv goes out? I only have 91,000 miles on the truck. I don't wheel and have 881 springs up front for a little lift. What would cause this?

 

Yikes

I guess if you wear them down to nothing then that'll happen, but sounds like you needed to replace them a long time ago imho

 

Clicking noise around corners is a dead giveaway that the cv's are shot. Now that you've heard that noise, remember it.
A cut boot will lose the lube and fail. A leak under the clamp will allow water in and fail. 91k is a little on the low side for failure, but not unheard of.

 

Something on my passanger side looks wrong. Don't remember it looking like that. I don't know if it was like this when we had the truck up in the air or not. As far as my suspension goes, I have 881's up front which I think give 1.75 - 2" of lift plus I have a diff drop. I installed everything probably like 6 months ago. I don't wheel unless you count the horrible dirt road that I take to work.

 

Both sides wobble. When we had it up in the air, we had both sides going and they were wobbling pretty bad and the diff was shaking up and down. We had to retighten the bolts as it looked like it caused one to loosen up.

 

doesnt look that bad compare to mine. sorry, not the best angle picture i took.

driver side


passenger side

 

Well I had the cv's replaced today. Looks nice and smooth and the diff doesn't have that shake to it. With that fixed, I still have this strange feeling in the floor and the gas pedal like there is a flat spot on something that's rotating up front with a shake to it that you can feel throughout the whole truck. Before, you could really only feel it at lower speeds but now you can now feel this through the whole speed range.

I took it back after a few blocks, and my mechanic couldn't find anything wrong. He could feel what I was feeling on a drive and we listened to everything under the truck and checked all the joints, etc. Everything sounds and looks ok. The front diff is a little louder then the rest but I was told it's due to the different type of bearings that are used.

I'm stumped and so is the mechanic. I guess I'm going to have to go somewhere else to have it looked at or just drive it until it gets worse. Don't know what else to do.

I have a carrier bearing drop on the way. Maybe it'll help. Who knows.

 

did he check the fluid in the front case?

 

He drained the front and filled it back up. I even had him check the gear case and the rear. Everything looked ok.

 

subbed because my cvs look like that and i have a slight vibration as well. i also have a diff drop installed with the front leveled