300,000 miles. The passenger side half shaft was replaced 4 or so years ago but the other side hasn't been touched & how can anything last that long without being regreased?

Is it a good idea to grease the CVs & wheel bearings & replace the boots or don't worry about it?

 

Wait till the CV gets loose or noisy, then replace the halfshaft. You don't want to break the boot seal. For the amount of labor required to grease the joints and replace the boots, you might as well just R&R the halfshaft and be done with it.

 

Ya it is a hell or a lot of work. My thinking was I have a break in work & it's a good time to do it instead of waiting until it goes bad & I don't have the time. The one on the drivers side scares me most.

What's the typical life on these things?

If nothing else I'll grease the wheel bearings.

 

4x4 hub bearing assemblys are not servicable, you just replace them as a unit when they go bad.

 

I had one hub go bad around 115,000. Other side was fine, but I replaced both at the same time. Half shafts/CV's look and drive just fine at 127,000.

 

I can see how the bearings had to be made that way looking at the book. I guess I'll leave well enough alone & pay attention for signs of it going bad & fix it then. On to the next project.

Anyone observed general mileage limits on these CV joints (vehicle not raised)? 1997 & 300,000 seems a lot to me.

Galaxy: do you have your suspension raised? That's almost to new to be going bad.

Thanks for the input guys.

 

A CV can last forever if the boot doesn't leak.

 

Yes; 4" lift and torsion bars cranked all the way. Should have nothing to do with my hub going bad. No idea why it went bad, but it did. Why does anything happen. I may be reading too much into it, but judging by your comments, you're reading too much into this and trying too hard. Sit back, relax, enjoy your truck, and stop looking for signs of stuff going bad. You don't have to look, it'll let you know.

 

Never had to replace mine @ 300,000 miles. Still running the factory zerk-less u-joints as well. Ford sure did something right there. Everything is still tight from what I can tell. - So far anyway.

 

I used to have problems on an old car that ate up CVs and got prett good at the swap. On thing I found was a zerk attached to a big hypo needle for adding extra grease through a boot. I only used it a couple times but found it to work well to inject extra grease without taking the boot loose.

 

Yeah, when I worked in a shop, there was some sort of needle they used to pierce the boot and inject grease. Not sure where to get one though as I never had the need for one myself. I would always choose just to change out the CV axle for the reasonable price they would be. IIRC, when I swapped out my CV's several years ago, they were something like $86.00 each