I have a bad rt front half shaft. The boot has a rip in it (although I suspect dirty play by the garage that showed me the problem). I have found one in a local CarQuest in town. My questions are:

1.) What is the size of the nut threaded on the end of the halfshalft running through the spindle?

2.) Is there a torque setting for this nut upon replacement or just tighten it till my hands hurt?

3.) After the nut is removed how do I get the halfshaft loose from the spindle?
Does if press out? Is there a special tool needed? Or does it just fall out upon removal of the spindle?

Any other information on "how to" remove this will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

This forum is for full size rear wheel drive vans so I don't know if anyone here has the information your looking for. I looked at the other forums and I guess the Windstar isn't truck based so there is no forum dedicated to it. You might want to try posting in the General Automotive Discussion forum.

 

Diggar,

I can offer some general front wheel drive information, nothing secific to your application though.

The nut will be large, probably between 32 and 46 MM

Yes there is a torque setting. They generally are in the 150 to 200 ft / lb range. Pretty hard to get off too. An air impact wrench or a very long pull handle will be needed.

Sometimes the spindle will just pull out and sometime you need a FWD puller. I've seen them both ways. You usually hace to pull the lower ball joint loose to allow the spindle enough free movement for the axle to come out of the hub.

You may also need a large pickle fork to get the axle out of the transaxle. Sometimes a large pry bar or wooden wedge will do the trick.

Of course, this isn't enough info for you to do the job but you can see that you will need several tools, some of them expensive to do the job. It may be cheaper for you to hire it done.

If you do it yourself, you may want to see if there is an axle rebuilder in your town. I prefer to have my on axles rebuilt as apposed to buying one that is already rebuilt from a parts store. The rebuild standards vary quit a bit and you never know if the rebuilt one came from a wrecked car or whatever. That replacement warranty doesn't mean much when you have to do the job over yourself due to a bad part. Been there. If the axle doesn't have a lot of miles on it and the boot hasn't been torn very long, you can clean it, repack it and put a new boot on it. This job requires patience.

Good luck,

Gene