How to Replace Passengers Side CV Axle 2002-08 Dodge RAM 1500

Okay, friends. To get started on this job, the first thing we need to do is safely raise and support the vehicle with the suspension hanging. Remove all five of your lug nuts and take the wheel off. Now that we have the wheel off, we have a nice, clear view of our caliper. Let's remove the two caliper bracket mounting bolts. Remove your caliper. Now we're gonna set it aside so it's not putting any pressure on our flex hose. Get the rotor off of here. Time to separate our outer tie rod end from our knuckle. If you have a cotter pin, just go ahead and get it out of there, and then we're gonna remove the nut. Separate the tie rod from the knuckle. Now let's separate the upper ball joint from the knuckle up here by removing this nut. Put that nut on just a couple threads. Give this a couple loving bonks till it separates. Pull down. Remove your nut. There it is. ...your axle nut. Now it's gonna be time to separate the axle from the wheel bearing. Use a nice punch right here. Working on the lower ball joint, if you have a cotter pin, go ahead and get that out of the way. Let's remove the lower ball joint nut. Just keep in mind that there's gonna be nothing holding the knuckle in. Start this nut on a couple threads for safety. Now we'll continue on with our hammer. We're gonna give this a couple loving bonks to break it free. Lift up on your knuckle. Remove the nut.

At this point, what we're gonna need to do is remove the knuckle. You have to keep in mind that the axle is still going through the bearing, and the lower ball joint's going through the knuckle, so just kind of maneuver it in a such way that it will come right out. Now, the next thing we wanna talk about is whether you're replacing the axle separately, or the axle with the intermediate shaft, which is more than likely what you're gonna have to do. Theoretically, what you could try to do at this point is to tap on the axle and drive it away from the vehicle, and hopefully, it'll separate from the intermediate shaft. Typically it doesn't, and you have to replace the intermediate shaft at the same time, which is what we're doing in our video today.

Let's go ahead and spray down the area. Now we're gonna remove our mounting bolts that hold this plate to the differential itself. The second bolt is gonna be directly diagonal from it. The next thing we need to do is separate this sealed area from the differential. So, just try to grab a little corner. Put a couple loving bonks. Try to grab anywhere you can. Okay. There we are. Let's go ahead and pull this out of here. There it is, friends. The next thing we need to do is clean up this area along here where the seal's gonna ride. Use a nice razor blade, and just scrape it right off. That's looking pretty good. Now looking inside of this area, you can see this little cone. We kinda wanna grab onto that. This is your bearing race. We'll pull it right out of there, and we're gonna take that for recycling.

Now let's take our rag, clean out this area where the race just came from. Make sure that you don't have any debris inside there. Make sure that everything's nice and clean along here. Let's move along. So now, we're just gonna get this seal ready here. Just take a little bit of petroleum jelly and go along this inner ring right here, where you can see where that spring is. That's just to kinda hold it in while we mount this. Let's go ahead and put in our brand new bearing race here. Should slide right in, then bottom out. So now, it's gonna be time to coat this bearing. We wanna make sure we do that with some 75-90 gear oil. That's also what we're gonna be using to check and fill the differential in the end. Just get it on all those bearings. Work it around. That feels really good. Just gonna get some along this little cog right here. Nice. Now we're just gonna bring this up. Slide it right in here. Something to pay quick attention to is this little metal ring. It needs to be on the bearing when you put this in. So just go ahead and slide it in. Make sure you've got that metal ring as well. Now let's get the seal on there. Let's go ahead and clean the threads on our bolts. Now we're gonna go ahead and put our seal up on here. Line up those bolt holes.

The next thing we wanna do is take those bolts that we just cleaned, put a little bit of RTV on them, and then we're just gonna start them into their corresponding holes. Now I'm just gonna take a nice metal cup, something that can go over like this. I'm gonna give it a couple loving bonks until the seal is nice and flush up against here. So, what you're gonna find, as you try to push this in, is that the seal tends to wanna rock. If you're hitting on this side, it's gonna kinda pop out on this side, and vice versa. So what you can try to do is just try to snug up these bolts a little bit, and then give it a couple more loving bonks, and then just keep tightening them as you go. So, I have this pretty much bottomed out at this point. I'll bottom these out, and then we're gonna torque them to manufacturer specification. Torque them to 21 foot-pounds.

Now it's gonna be time to install our axle. I like to put a little bit of copper Never-Seez in there. Put your axle on the splines of the stub shaft there. We're just gonna give it a couple loving bonks on the end here, with a nice rubber mallet. Make sure it's locked in. Move along. Now it's gonna be important to make sure you check your front differential fluid. Feeling along the differential cover, you're gonna find a nice rubber plug. Go ahead and clean off around the area, to make sure no dirt or debris can fall into your differential. Get underneath here. Pop it out of the way. To check your differential fluid, you can use a gloved finger. Just come in, bring it down at a little bit of an angle, and make sure you get a teeny bit of fluid. This looks like it's perfectly full. If you need to fill it, use 75-90 gear oil. That back in. Clean up our mess.

A little bit of copper Never-Seez on your splines of your axle. Now let's get our knuckle back on here. Washer there. Now we're gonna start in our upper ball joint. I like to use a nice bar so I can pull down on it. Let's go ahead and snug up this lower ball joint. Now let's torque this to 38 foot-pounds. So now, you just wanna make sure that the slot lines up with your hole in your ball joint. If it doesn't, you need to continue tightening until the next one does. Let's go ahead and put in our locking cotter pin here. Let's torque this to 40 foot-pounds. Now the next thing we're gonna wanna do is get our rotor on here, but before you do that, you need to make sure you clean up your hub, and, of course, clean up the back of your rotor braking surface. We have a new bearing and a new rotor, so I don't have anything to clean here. I'm just gonna go ahead and put it on there. I'm gonna start on a lug nut so that this can't flop around, and we'll continue.

Now it's gonna be time to get our caliper on here. Let's go ahead and slide that right over the rotor. Start in both of your bolts. It's always a good idea to use a little bit of threadlocker. Let's go ahead and snug these up. Torque them to 130 foot-pounds. Let's get our outer tire rod end on here. We'll start the nut, then we'll torque it to 45 foot-pounds. Torque this to 45 foot-pounds. After that, go ahead and put in your cotter pin. Lock it down. Let's put a little bit of red threadlocker on the axle threads, and then put on our axle nut. We'll just bottom this out, and then we'll torque it to manufacturer specifications.

Now it's gonna be time to torque your axle nut. You wanna do that while the vehicle is close to the ground. Have a bar going across the studs and down like this. That's gonna prevent it from spinning. Torque the axle nut to 185 foot-pounds. Now it's gonna be time to get the wheel up on here. Your little cover. Start on all your lug nuts. We'll bottom them out, and then we'll torque them to 130 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Okay, friends. So, now all that's left to do is go ahead and pump up that brake pedal, take it for a road test, and make sure your four-wheel drive works as it should.