Cv axle help

Hell/o/ I'm looking for some help here. Novice wrencher, hate me for trying to work on my car, etc.

So I'm doing a clutch job on my '98 200sx (sentra) with the 1.6l GA engine. I'm having a lot of trouble removing the cv axles. On the passenger side, the axle is already loose (pic related) but on the driver side its still firmly in there. I have a feeling it's something simple that my lack of experience is preventing me from figuring out. Do I have to remove the control arm from the hub?

I have the factory service manual for my car, and have read the "front axle / suspension" part that explains removal of the axle, but I think it expects somebody that's reading it to have more knowledge than I do.

One thing the manual says is that i should unbolt the hub from the strut tower at the end, which in the picture is clearly not the case. It's not very hard to put those bolts back in, so I can do it if necessary but if anyone has any experience with this car I'd appreciate any help I can get. This has been a project I thought I could tackle mostly solo and this is my first roadblock.

Hoping to get some good feedback (lol)

TLDR help me work on my car

Hit the end of the drive shaft with a big fucking hammer, it'll break free and pop out
Also, penetrating oil helps

I already hit it a couple times with a rubber mallet pretty damn hard, is there any danger of damaging the tranny if I keep smacking it?

I'm planning on replacing the axles anyway so I don't care about these ones but I just can't afford to fuck this up.

Also, does anyone have any idea how to get that nut out from under the cv boot? I already took out the cotter pin but the fucker won't budge, and I don't have any space to put a ratchet and a breaker bar with the boot in the way.

>novice wrencher
>has no idea how to do it
Should've paid a professional. Stick to brakes and oil. You're just going to fuck it up.

Car cost me $500, I drove it for 2 months already with no problems. If I fuck it up I still haven't spent $1000 on it, including all the pieces I have that I plan to replace, which is still less than what the shop quoted me. Fuck off or help yeah?

This, if you have to get a sledge and a piece of wood and hammer onto the end of the axle towards the transmission, they're pressed in.

I normally use a pneumatic hammer to budge that shit out.

>is there any danger of damaging the tranny if I keep smacking it?

The way CV joints are built will mean you'll damage it before you will the transmission. If you're taking the halfshaft completely off then you don't have to worry about that nut.

>buying shit cars
shiggy diggy.

I am a poorfag. I bought the car for cheap, it hasn't done me wrong, I'm just trying to do some maintenance so it can run a little smoother. I got a quote for like $1100 just to fix the damn clutch at the shop, which I know full well is a rip off. I bought the clutch kit, flywheel, clutch cable, both CV axles and a seal for my tranny that's leaking, all for ~$250. If all it takes is some elbow grease I have no problem doing it.

Or do you just have everyone wipe your ass for you?

They aren't pressed in but they are usually stuck as fuck because the splines get rusty and don't wanna budge
Rubber mallet will not work, you need a 5lb sledge

Thanks user. Does anyone know anything about how to get that nut out?

Can I just pry off the cv axle since I don't need it or do I need to loosen the nut somehow first?

You want to keep the cv joint and wrap the ends in plastic so that the grease doesn't get all dirty. P sure you can send them into where ever you got the replacements like a battery. But I did my cv joints like 6 years ago so I can't remember completely.

The boot is torn up on the passenger side. Do I bother with covering it up still?

Hmmm dunno, again my memory is foggy. You can do it if you want just in case, no harm no foul right?

nigger that hub needs to come off before you can get at that nut, wtf are you smoking

if you cant fit a box wrench or cresent in there, then how else would it come off?

also, dont tare your boots if you plan on using them ever again.
if you are throwing your CV's away, then by all means, do it.
but still try to avoid damaging them just out of good practice

Wow that outer boot is trashed. Just hit it with a hammer, don't worry about mushrooming the CV axle you need a new one anyway. It looks like you already got it started, you might need to remove the lower ball joint from the control arm to give you more room for the CV axle. Just keep hitting it

Good post user will keep smashing. Will I just need a pry bar to get the other side out of the tranny?

What I often do is put the nut on backwards and smash them both. More surface area and you protect the threads.

I've used a sledgehammer do to these things. Axles suck.

Yah. Hammering the shit is how I did it.

its single wishbone so id take off the lower strut mount instead of taking the knuckle off the lower ball joint since on an almera i worked on (same engine gearbox setup as a sentra just europoor spec) you have to take off the cv joint to have easy access to the ball joint.

screw the nut back on the cv joint a few threads so you dont mushroom the fuck out of it and hit it with a big lump hammer fucking hard. no pussy mallet shit. she'll come out lad dont worry about it. wear gloves after that cv joint grease is annoyingly messy

Yeah you'll need a pry bar. You can get a decent one pretty cheap at harbor freight. Getting the inner part of the CV axle out of the transmission is easy. You just need to overcome the force of the c clip holding the axle into the transmission, it doesn't take a lot of force to come out.

get the transmission side out before you start smashing on it, just use a pry bar for that, then spray the shit out of the splines in the hub so that some of it sokes in there and frees it up a bit. if you have new axles to put in there then fucking go to town with the hammer once its out of the transmission side so that you arent just smashing the axle into the trans housing