That was my experience with rebuilt parts from AutoZone and Oreilly's. Good warranties, but
I have to do the work over again, so that's my life wasted.
If I want reliability I now buy from NAPA or dealer. $.02

 

If I recall correctly its torque is around 150-165ft pounds. I remove the wishbone so that I do not have to disassemble the new axle for installation. Also remember to replace the spindle but with a new one when putting in your new CV. Don't eyeball it use a torque wrench last thing you want is a bad wheel bearing due to a under torqued spindle nut

 

Yup I'll be re-torquing it for sure using a new spindle nut.

I want to do the lesser of the 2 evils. Of course I can't know ahead of time how easily the control arm bolt is going to come out. I THINK though that this trans-axle may have been replaced at some point. If so, maybe the guy before me had that bolt out..

I eyeballed the wishbone, and on this model it sure looks like that inner joint would fit thru. But everybody says it won't so ..

Also of interest is that I notice that the drivers side axle has a ring on it (for ABS?). But the passenger side (the one I'll be replacing) does not. Does this make sense?

 

Well today I did the repair. Fortunately it went smoothly and the control arm bolt came right out for me.

When re-assembling, I torqued the control arm to 47ft-lb, the ball joint nut to 40 ft-lb, and the spindle nut to 180 ft-lb.

What a difference. Thanks for the tips and help guys.