kayarepea8

Hey all, just a little background... my car started making some funny sounds, and started vibrating. It sounded like it was coming from the front, and I knew my CV axle was already on it's way out, but it sounded more like a bearing was going, so I decided to change out my wheel bearing on the front driver's side as well. The original axle was a helluva ***** to get out, but I pulled the inner joint apart, then got a slide hammer on the body, and pulled er out.

When I went to install the new axle, it was also really difficult to get in. I looked up online what to do, and it seemed like a hammer on the end of the axle was a bad idea, even a rubber mallet. So I pulled off the c-clip, and bent it inwards ever so slightly, reinstalled, attempted to install the axle, and repeated this until I got it in. Each time I did it, I only squeezed the clip opening smaller by a few thousandths of an inch.

Anyways, at the same time, my rear passenger caliper had seized up, and ruined my year old rotors, so I also had to do new calipers and rotors out back. Now I'm into the car for about 1200 dollars, not including the tools I had to buy to do it. I'm broke as it is, and this has just killed us.

So now everything is back together, and the sound and vibration (which gets progressively worse as I turn right more and more) is stlil there. Over the next few hours of driving, it got worse and worse, to the point that the sound was there even going straight. So I got the car back up on stands, and looked underneath again. Turns out that when I push and pull the inner CV joint body, the body/axle stub shows what I consider to be fairly significant play in the radial direction (up and down, side to side). There is also about 1/16" to 3/32" of axial (in and out) play, but from what I've researched, it seems that this is pretty standard for front CV axles, certainly on other Toyota and Lexus models. Upon closer inspection, I realized there was gear oil on the diff, on the driver's side. I had just changed out the fluid when I did the CV axle, and the fluid that came out was pretty decent looking, though it was not totally clear, which to me indicated potential water infiltration. I cleaned up the entire diff with brake cleaner, took her off the stands, and went for a short drive. Upon getting back up on stands, I could see clearly that there was a little drip of oil coming down from the driver's axle seal on the transfer case (front differential? not sure what they call it on this car, seems it depends on who you talk to, lol).

So now I'm left having to pull everything apart AGAIN, this time without damaging the brand new CV axle I just put in.

First off... any suggestions or advice on getting that axle out without damaging it? I'm thinking of just trying to figure a way to get that slide hammer on there, and pull it off as straight as I can?

Second, and most importantly, I just signed up for the TIS service manual portal, so that I could see exactly how to change out this bearing and seal. I assume it just gets pulled and reinstalled like most any other bearing and seal, but this is a Lexus, and it seems the engineers have intentionally designed pretty much everything to be an exasperating exercise in body contortions and self flaggelaton, so I'd really like to look at the repair procedure from the Lexus service manual.

I signed up for the techinfo.toyota.com portal, paid for the membership, and went to log in, only to get an error. I've tried it on two different computers, and two different android phones, all to no avali. I've tried incognito mode, I've tried clearing the cache, cookies, and all browsing data, only to still be denied access.

Would someone who has access to the techinfo site, and who is actually able to log in, be willing to grab me the pages from the service manual for my 07 Lexus IS250 AWD, for changing the drivers side axle bearing and seal on the transfer case/front differential? I would greatly appreciate it, like incredibly much. I'm supposed to take my car on a road trip for work tomorrow, and I'm really hoping to have this bearing installed by then.

Thanks so much for your help, I greatly appreciate it.

My email to send the file or photos or whatever is just my username @gmail.com (i.e. krprice84@). I don't want to put the full email, for fear of getting spam from bots, but it should be easy to figure out. If you can't figure out what email to send it to, please DM me and I'll send my entire email adddress.

Also, if someone happens to have the whole manual for any of the following cars, the procedure should be the same:

05-06 GS300 AWD
06-08 GS350 AWD
06-12 IS250 AWD
Toyota Mark X

Thanks again!

ibidu1

iTrader: (1)

Maybe trying making one of these or something similiar. You already did the hard part of unfreezing the old original axle, you should be able to remove it with ease.

kayarepea8

Yea, I saw that video, and it looks like it's not a bad idea actually. I could quite easily make something like that.

Just got access to techinfo, and just realized that the bearing goes in from the inside.... I'm screwed. I highly doubt I can take apart the differential, do the bearing, and get it back together correctly set up. It just sounds like a very, very difficult job. I mean, i've done an engine swap before, and I've done my fair share of other fairly involved auto repairs, but a differential is just so precision, I'm not so sure I can rebuild one.

Anyone done it before... how hard is it?

ibidu1

iTrader: (1)

Rarely do front diffs go bad! Ive never heard of one, going bad. I would pull the cv axle out, and replace one side seal on the diff. Fill the front diff with gear oil, and after you remount the axle see if it leaks or not.

Once you finish the seal take the car to a mechanic and let him properly diagnose the issue. Because all you are doing is throwing parts, money, and your time in hopes of a fix. If it is true the mechanic says the front diff is bad, source a used one at the junk yard and install it yourself. Because they rarely go bad, used parts should be dirt cheap.

kayarepea8

Hmm fair enough, that makes sense. I think I'm getting to that point. I was going to try putting a go pro camera under the car while I'm driving, so I can find out exactly where the noise is coming from. But if that falls to give me any insight, a mechanic is sadly going to be my next step. I've literally never taken my car to a mechanic for anything, not once. I need to figure out somewhere that's trustworthy, or I'm worried they're going to just take me to the cleaners.

As for used differentials, sadly I have found two differentials for sale in Canada, both of them have more km than my car has. Kinda feels a little stupid to put in a differential that's older than the one I may be having issues with now. If it turns out that's my problem, I'm looking at probably ordering one from the US on eBay, or trying to rebuild my own. The former sounds like three most logical way to go, it's just going to be expensive to ship something this heavy internationally.

ibidu1

iTrader: (1)

Putting a gorpo aimed at the front diff and axle is a good idea, post a video up of the noise aswell maybe we can help you.

When you mentioned vibration, are you sure your wheels/tires are true and not bent adding to another noise? A bent front wheel will give you nasty vibrations. Have you checked the wheels and spun them on a balancer? You can easily jack up 4 wheels of the car, and put the car in neutral and have someone spin the wheels (avoiding grabbing the wheel spokes to spin them) while you shine your phones light at the inside barrel of the front wheels. If they are bent, take them to a shop and have them straightened out.

kayarepea8

What exactly do you mean by the inside barrel? Like you mean stand under the car and look into the wheel from the back side? What if it's out of true axially? Would it be enough to see it just by standing in front of the car and looking down the edge of the wheel while it's on a lift and the wheel is turned?