How to Replace Front Passenger CV Axle 2001-05 BMW 325Xi

What's up, guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the front CV joint on this 2001 BMX 325XI. If you need this part or other parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1Aauto.com.

I raised the vehicle. We're using a two-post lift. If you doing this at your house, you can use a jack and jack stands. I'm going to remove the tire to gain extra access. It's going to make it a little bit easier. I'm going to use a 17 millimeter socket and an air gun. You could always use a breaker bar. Take these lug nuts out or lug studs out. When I get to the last one, I'm just going to hold the wheel so it doesn't fall. Take the last one out. Grab the wheel. Pull it off.

On this nut, there's these two little tabs that get pushed in so that this locks the nuts. So what you can do is take a file or a punch or a chisel and a hammer, and just tap them out. Just a little bit so that when you go to loosen up this nut, it doesn't get caught right there. So do that. Spread those out a little bit. Now I'm going to take this axle socket. We actually sell this at 1Aauto.com. This is a 12 point axle socket. It's a 36 millimeter, and I'm going to use my air gun to take this off. If you don't have an air gun, you can do this with a breaker bar and just use a pry bar, put the two bolts in here, two axle bolts, and you can stick a pry bar in between there to prevent the rotor from spinning. I'll just take those off for this because I'm using the gun. I shouldn't need those.

Loosen it up. Take that nut off. So I want to take this nut off. So I'm going to use some rust penetrant, spray it down, soak it for a little bit. Now I'm going to take a 18 millimeter wrench, go over this nut. I'm going to loosen this nut up. Once I get a couple turns on the box side, then I'll switch to the open side, and take this nut off. Get that nut loosened up, and sometimes you can't get it off because the axle's in the way. And we're just going to leave it loose like that. So I'm going to separate the ball joint from the knuckle right here. You can do this a couple of ways. Sometimes there's a clamp that you can slide in there and it pushes down on the ball joint. What we're going to use is a fork. We're going to try that method. You could also take a hammer and just tap on the knuckle itself. Just be careful. You don't want to break anything.

Just going to use this pickle fork and a hammer. Don't worry about that. Slide that in there, and we'll separate it. Now the reason why you might not want to use a pickle fork is generally it rips the boot on the lower control arm or on the ball joint. So keep that in mind if you're going to reuse the ball joint, you might not want to use this method. There we go. It's separated. Pull that nut out of the way.

Just going to spray some rust penetrant on the threads right here, the axle. If this moves pretty freely, then it's no big deal. You can take a hammer and just give it a tap. You don't want to hit it too hard. You're better off taking a punch and sticking in the center there and then hitting it because you don't want to mushroom the end of it. What I mean by mushroom is you don't want the threads to get thicker because the hammer smashed it down.

Just going to take a big punch and a hammer, give it a tap. It's on there pretty good. I'm just going to use a air chisel. Make sure you wear hearing protection and eye protection. So I am going to use a hammer on just on the end of it. Normally you'd want to be concerned about mushrooming the end of it, but we're replacing the axle anyway. So it's not a big deal. There we go. That was easy.

All right. So I'll slide that out of the way. Sometimes those can be pretty difficult. As you can see, our boot is ripped. So that's why we're replacing this axle. So I want to pop the axle off on this side. I'm just going to use a long punch. Get right in there. If you have a pry bar that you can hit the end of it, use that and then a hammer. Just git it a tap. There you go. The axle's coming out. I should be able to grab it. Sometimes it helps if you twist it a little bit. I'll give it a couple more taps. There we go. Some fluid is coming out. So keep that in mind. You might want to put a drain underneath. Just grab the axle and slide it out.

Here's the old part. Here's the new CV shaft from 1Aauto.com. The size is the same. Comes with a new nut, has the same CV joint and boot. It has the same tripod joint, has the same axle sealing surface right here and the same shaft link that goes into the front differential. Get yours at 1Aauto.come and you'd be ready to rock and roll.

Now I'm going to slide this in. Now the passenger side has a different length shaft. This shaft goes through the front differential on the driver's side, it's shorter. So that's the major difference between the passenger side and the driver's side. So we're just going to slide this back into the differential. Just be careful. It's a good idea to replace the seal, but if you don't, just be careful to not hit it with the drive shaft with the axle. All right. Slide that back into position. Sometimes these can be tricky to get back in.

So there's a little lip right here. You can just take a pry bar. You can try giving it a little tap on the end of it, just be careful. You don't want to hit it too hard. You don't want to break anything. If that doesn't work, just try spinning it again. There we go. Before I slide the axle back through the hub assembly, I am going to use just a little bit of this copper anti-seize. This is just going to prevent it from seizing in there if I ever have to take it out again. Just a little bit, nice thin coat. That's good. Slide this out. Get that lined up. And there we go. Take the nut, get it started. We're going to line up the lower control arm, ball joint through here. Get the nut, get this started. Right. Then I'm going to take a 19 millimeter wrench, tighten this nut right here. Now it's next to impossible to get a torque wrench on here. Maybe if you used a crow's foot, you might be able to torque this. But you're going to want to torque this to 48 foot pounds. So just do the best you can.

Now we need to tighten this axle nut. What I'm going to do is take a pry bar, put some of the lug studs in there, take my torque wrench. I'm going to tighten this to 213 foot pounds. Be careful this is a lot of torque. All right. We're good. Take that out. Take these bolts out. So the axle came with the new axle nut. If you're reusing your axle, it's a good idea to replace the nut. Now there is these two indentations on the axle itself. What you need to do is take a chisel and a hammer and just tap down. This is going to lock the nut in place, prevent it from loosening up. Just like that.

Now I'm going to put the wheel on. Just line up the holes. Take one of the lug studs, get that started. I can grab the other ones, and I'll just tighten these down. Then I'm going to lower the vehicle and torque them. Now I'm going to use the 17 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to torque these lug bolts to 95 foot pounds. I'm going to torque them in a star pattern so that the wheel gets tightened down evenly. And I'm just going to go around again, just double check. Good to go.

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