I think I found the source of my moderate speed vibration.

I think this is the cause of the vibration I am getting between 45 and 50 MPH. One of those blind people that are always running out in front of our cars must have caused the damage.



That's not baby poop.



That's the inner passenger side CV joint grease all over the place. The boot is ripped and the joint is shot. I had my suspicions that this was the problem. I would say that it has very little time until it fails completely. There is already substantial axial and radial play. I'm glad I dug into it before I had a catastrophic failure. It should cost no more than $350 to fix it. This is just one of those things that you get when you are fixing a salvage car. Oh well, now at least I have something else to take pictures of....

 

With the correct tools it should be a nice clean job. The procedure looks straight forward:

Drain the tranny fluid.
Remove the wheel.
Remove the speed sensor.
Remove the brake caliper and rotor.
Remove the axle nut.
Unbolt the tie rod end.
Unbolt the lower control arm from the ball joint.
Slide the outer CV joint out of the hub.
Pull the inner CV joint from the tranny.
Re-install in reveres order.

If this fixes the vibration (which it should) then the car should be completely road worthy.

 

I hope to have many more "interesting" threads in the future also.

 

I am 99 and 44/100% sure it was damaged in the accident or just afterwards. It has vibrated since the first time I drove the car so it has been damaged the entire time. There was no grease all over the place when I was working on it nor was there grease when I took it to the alignment shop last Sunday so the boot failure was afterwards. I will dissect the CV joint after I have it out. I really doubt there was any trans axle damage since the components that would have been damage would have failed very quickly. Only time will tell on those though. My theory on what happened is this: When the car hit whatever it hit it pushed the passenger side frame rail toward the middle of the car. The end crumpled and the entire rail flexed inward and then sprang back out. I know this because there was a mark on the inside of the frame rail were it hit the engine water pump pulley. Because of this flex I would say that either the axle was put in compression and damaged the inner CV joint or there was some kind of side load that damaged the joint. Also my suspicions that lead me to the axle were: Vibration; only rotating things will make a vibration and I had already ruled out the tires, wheels, ICE, and both electric motors. Smell; After it was warmed up there was a "hot eraser" smell coming from the cowl area under the hood. There are not that many rubber things under the hood that could make that kind of smell (the boot has a kink in it also). A low speed clunk; this started happening on Tuesday morning in creeping traffic. If I unloaded the drivetrain and then loaded back up I would get a small clunk every time. I knew then that something was up with either the axle, the differential, or even possibly a wheel bearing.

 

It and the water pump pulley have already been changed with new Toyota parts. I noticed that the pulley looked a little "off" while I was fitting the radiator housing. I gave it a spin by hand and it went wobble, wobble, wobble. I took off the pulley and the bracket that the pulley is bolted to was bent also so I replaced the pump and the pulley. That's when I noticed the mark on the frame rail so I then went over that side all the way back to the floor pan with a fine tooth comb to check for any other damage.

 

I picked up a slide hammer style axle puller like the shop manual says to use this afternoon. Hopefully since this car has so few miles it will be an easy swap.

 

Yea, those axles with circlips can be a PITA to pull sometimes.

 

That is the alternative. I would rather not have to do it that way because usually you don't have a good place to pry at or there is some seal or dust cover that gets mangled in the process.

 

I may rebuilt it myself and sell it or just keep it for a spare. I know someone with a good inner CV joint that they may be willing to part with. I have a seal and a new axle nut.