i've got limited knowledge on little cars so hopefully you guys can help.

the girls car started to make a clicking noise tonight so i put it up on the jack and crawled underneath and found that i can grab the inner cv joint and move it up and down and it makes a pretty good noise.

i added a picture of the part thats actually moving, i believe its where it splines into another shaft that extends about 18 inches and connects to the transmission (passengers side). the drivers side moves in the same way too but not as bad and it isnt making noise.

i dont think its the actual cv joint itself, its where it connects to the other shaft. is there a needle roller bearing somewhere in there that it rides on??
i had a truck with loose cv joints the same way as this and i drove it for 3 years and it was fine before i sold it.




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Usually the "clicking" comes from the outer joint....but if the inner is bad then the same.

The intermed shaft rarely goes bad. So, best bet is the shafts....how long can you go? Almost as long as you can handle the noise and vibrations. The concept of CV shafts is the same.

 

is there a bushing or a bearing in there? what supports it?

 

Well, that is now going to require a "little" more information....can we have the details of the car.

The workings of a CV shaft are the same if it is a truck or a car...so just "shrink" everything and it will be the same...no different than your truck.

 

sorry about that its a 95 accord auto 6 cyl.

i didnt really get a good look at it since we noticed the noise sunday night i only had time for a half azz inspection and i wont have access to the car again until this weekend.

just from a quick inspection the inner and outer joints themselves dont seem to have excessive wear. however the inner joint where it splines into the transaxle extension had more play than i would like to see and it make a noise pretty close to what i heard when i would move it up and down.

pretty much my question is what supports the cv joint when its splined in? could there be a bad bushing or bearing thats letting it move up and down? i'm hoping i can just replace the cv shaft and be done with it.

 

I got a better look at the car and I can see how the front end goes together. The cv shafts seem to be fine with no play, however it's the splines on the inner shaft goes into the extension shaft where the play is. The carrier bearing has no play.

The car actually only makes the clicking/clunking noise when going in a straight line.

I can also see that these splines don't self grease like I thought.

My best guess is that the splines are dry and possibly worn and that I might be able to solve the problem by taking it apart and greasing the splines.

Am I on the right track??

 

Well, you always have a little play on the inner joints depending on the direction of pushing / pulling.
There are 3 slots in the CV housing that 3 bearings slide into.
Usually the bearings wear 'divots' into the slots and the result will be a vibration or rumble noise when going on and off the gas at highway speed.
Check for a grease build up on the car inline with the large end of the CV boot.

 

i learned another lesson tonight and now have to look for another mechanic.

i fix 95% of the problems i run into myself, every now and then i'll run into something i dont want to deal with and i'll have a shop do it.

3 weeks ago the car needed a water pump so i had a local shop with a great reputation do it.

i did ball joints myself a week before that and checked all the front end parts and everything was tight.

it never crossed my mind to re check the tire and hub since it all checked out fine before. what happened was the shop didnt tighten down the lug nuts and only 1 was tight while the other 3 backed out enough to cause the wheel to clunk.

now i'm not too happy because it damaged one of the studs and it just spins, its most likely bent.

i should not have to re-check the shops work to make sure they tightened everything down. moral of the story be careful who you have work on your car.

 

Wow, that's a dangerous thing to leave loose, too.

I had that happen one time when I bought tires & alignment. Guy didn't tighten the lug bolts (86 Jetta - it was a long time ago). Luckily I noticed it before pulling out of the parking lot.