Keep breaking CV's

[jess6369]

Hi guys, any help appreciated.

I've got a 94 chevy K2500 8 lug with the 6.5 diesel nv4500 5 speed transmission.

I believe it has a tuffcountry 6 inch lift which was cranked to hell but I recently lowered it. I'll attach a pic of my angles.

Anyway anytime I drive the truck in 4wd I nearly immediately break a cv axle. It's always the inner joint right at the diff. It'll break the axle housing or just rip the joint of its housing. It does have a small spacer maybe 1/2 inch thick on the passenger side and no spacer on the driver side. It seems like it almost always breaks the passenger cv axle. I've been using the autozone duralast lifetime warranty cv axles and I'm on my 3rd one.

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I'm running 37 inch military Wrangler MTR's on 16.5 x 8.25 steel wheels, it also broke cv's when i was on bald 37inch procomp all terrains on 20 inch aluminum wheels.

If anyone has any suggestions i would appreciate it.

I'm gonna try to pick up an oem cv today and see how that works.

Thanks
Jesse

 

[4thesporty]

Just so it's said, a Dana 60 would cure this.......


37" tires are not too IFS friendly no matter the condition. Is your diff secured properly, i.e. all the mounting bolts tight and its not "torquing" when in 4WD?


edit: these will not break either:

http://www.rcvperformance.com/product-details-axles.aspx?sku=CVJIFS-GM2535

 

[454cid]

Spacer? I don't have any kind of spacer on my 1-ton. Are you sure you're not getting 1/2 ton cv-shafts? I think they're a little shorter and run spacers.

 

[SkyHighColorado]

I wouldn't be surprised if its just the fact its duralast. Duralast is the most BS product line of all times. Have you ran the cv without the spacer, I don't recall ever using a cv spacer and I just did my passenger 1/2 ton cv the other day.

 

[jess6369]

I know I could always solid axle swap but it's my daily driver while i'm in college and until I have the funds to pick up an extra car it's not gonna happen.

I see that the cv I broke yesterday has the flange cut away from where it mounts and looks like the light duty cv axle for the 2500 6 lug so that wouldn't help either.

Picking up an A1 cardone from pepboys today for 20% off so maybe that'll be better, if it breaks too I'm going junkyarding for an oem cv.

 

[jess6369]

The spacer is probably a tough country thing, without it the bolts that go through the cv to hold it to the axle stub coming out of the diff hit the subframe of the lift. I just put in a new front diff and I impact wrenched the bolts on but i'll see if I can move it all today when I put in my new cv.

Thank you for the help

 

[Chevyguy78]

The spacer is a tuff country thing. I have them on both sides on my truck. Drivers and passengers. But I never broke any or had cv issues. Good luck.

 

[454cid]

You don't, by any chance, have the front differential welded together?

 

[jess6369]

I believe I found the issue today.

I replaced the duralast cv and got an A1CARDONE from Pepboys.

Went to autozone to return the duralast and get an extra one for a spare but they refused to give me one because I've already used 3 but they did give me my money back

Anyway, put the new cv in and drive over to my grass field, put the truck in 4x4 and drove about 5 feet until snap! The cv blows again, this time it pulled the tripod joint all the way out of the holder and knocked out 1 bearing without cracking the housing.

I drove it back to the garage and I notice my diff looks crooked. The cv was operating at a pretty bad sideways angle, like if you were viewing the truck from the side the cv was angled steeply forward and I think the extra length from that and the angle kept causing my issues.

I looked at my axle tube from the old diff and I notice there are extra holes drilled by the mount to give it more room to adjust.

I switched the axle tubes out and moved the diff backward so the angle was as small as I could get it. The angle looks similar to my bro's 97 k2500 so I think i'm good. I have another cv on the way by way of amazon prime so Thursday night will be testing it again to see if that was my issue.

Can a cv axle handle that kind of angle? A lateral angle front to back.

 

[jess6369]

Front diff isn't welded.