Manual Hub CV Axle Rebuild

I picked up a couple junkyard manual hub CVs for my prerunner conversion, and wondering about the ability to rebuild or repair the side with the large ball bearings. I’m assuming this side of the shaft is pressed into place and not able to be dismantled? I’ve only seen information on repairing the other end with the theee rollers bearings. There were tears in the boots on this side of the axle, so the grease was gunked up and there was some moisture in there. I removed most of the grease manually and there’s no grit at all, moves freely and smoothly. What do you think? Repack/reboot and run it? I’m new to 4WD and CV axles so just want to make sure I’m not making a catastrophic mistake here with used parts. The other end in the tan grease is perfect.

 

@zippsub9 Hey Jason, I actually just saw on your insta, you've clearly fully dismantled these as part of your rebuilds. Any tips for getting this end apart? There's that C-clip that can be removed, which gives the shaft some play, but it's not clear how to proceed from there.

 

It’s a son of a bitch. There is another clip buried underneath the other side of the star holding the bearings. I just go by feel with my eyes closed.

 

Holy shit I think I see what you mean, if you tilt the shaft you can get a pick in there to the side of one of the bearings and can feel the groove for the clip. How the hell did you get that out?? What tool do you use? I assume its a similar clip to the one that goes into the diff vs. C-clip style?

 

Well, after messing with it for a little over an hour today, I got the clip off and the axle disassembled! It really did feel almost impossible and I think the trick is to just keep playing around with it, you can get the idea of what you're trying to undo by looking at the smaller clip at the top of the shaft near the tripod bearing, you're trying to remove the same one on the other end just buried beneath the star and ball bearing assembly, full of grease, with no visibility, and about a centimeter of space to get a pick into...I'll try to post a more visual writeup here shortly to hopefully be of help to anyone else trying to do this. That bottom bearing assembly is actually a really elegant piece of engineering, it took a minute to get all the components out after removing the shaft, you kind of have to rock the bearing race back and forth and pop out the balls one at a time.