Steering knuckle/axle half shaft problems

I've got a buddies 1996 tacoma here , and so far I've installed new cv axles, upper and lower ball joints, and sway bar end links. he was driving it with the (manual) hubs locked in and I think it was putting a lot of stress on the ball joints causing the axle and ball joint to separate. well he got it towed to the house and on the drivers side the steering knuckle was stuck up under the coil springs. I went ahead and removed the knuckle to install new UBJ and put in the new axle and its still pretty close to the coil spring. Whats got me worried is the axle is binding up when the hub is locked in up in the air. I'm waiting on his rotors to come back from the shop and a idle up valve for power steering or Id run it up the road to make sure its ok. Never had this much trouble installing this stuff. I think this thing has coil spacers on it too. anyone have any advice for me or suggestions? I really appreciate any insight.

 

The other side looks fine right now but I don't have the lower ball joint installed yet so the passenger side may be the same once I install the LBJ. I'm going to go pick up the rotors here in a bit and put the drivers side back together and drop it down to see if the axle is still binding up.

 

So the angle definitely changed looks better. Can anyone confirm this looks right?

 

Is the truck on the ground in the last picture?

 

Yes last pic is on the ground

 

Mine did the same thing when I bought the truck. It was clunking on the coil. Guessing he's got a spacer lift? That's what I have. Not sure if that's the exact issue regarding the knuckle/coil binding. Camburg ucas took care of that for me. But I got a prerunner so no axle issues for meeeeee. But yeah when it's in the air it's a total bitch to work on. Best to lower it on the lca and put some preload on it while installing.

 

Gotcha. Yea it looks like it has a coil spacer on it. Thanks for the reply!

 

Axles binding up on drivers side. Sent it back hoping it's bad.

 

I don't think the cv is bad, there is to much lift in the front of the truck. If you look at the upper control arm, and the angle of the cv, the angles are to extreme. You will need to loose some lift in the front to stop binding the cvs.

 

I see what your saying. I don't know anything about this truck. It came to me a total wreck. So I can't compare before and after of what I did. I'm assuming it was working before all this happened so I don't understand why it would be binding now.

 

I don't think you did anything to change the actual lift of the truck, your just replacing parts. Can you get a picture of the top of the coilover?

 

Yes I will this eve and post it up asap. I'm heading home soon. Thanks for the replies man!

 

Is that three rubber isolaters underneath the spacer?

 

Just a sec I'll go check

 

It has two rubber isolaters.

 

Not sure what's going on there, should only need one isolater, maybe they added another one for a little more lift...
That spacer looks pretty big also. I'm assuming he didn't have a problem with it until he left the hubs locked in and had binding issues.

 

Yea. I have mixed feeling about the whole hubs locked in two wheel deal. A lot that I read says it's ok just more wear on components. I've always been told it's bad practice just don't do it. Whatever the case may be when I get this new axle if it still does it should I take the chance of driving it or would I just break the cv?

I'm 99% sure that the hub was put back together correctly because it was still doing it while the hub was completely removed. I'm kinda at a loss here.

 

Also he had been driving it short distances since around March when he bought it. Didn't say anything about having any weird vibes or anything. He is not mechanicallyinclined nor knows the first thing about vehicles either

 

Get that spacer off the truck! Simple as that. Looks like its overextending the hell out of everything.