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Driving fine in my 2011 Accord SE on the highway at 55 mph when coming upon stopped traffic. I slowed down to a crawl, then started to change from the left to the right lane when suddenly a banging sound came from under, if I was to determine an area, it would be slightly right of the gear level. The engine was running fine but there was no transmission to the wheels. My lane change to the right gave me just enough momentum to rest in the right shoulder. When the tow truck driver pulled the Accord up on on his truck bed, left behind under the Accord was a broken shaft with a steel ball on the end. Photos will be uploaded here. What went wrong, what broke, and how can I fix it? Thanks.
BTW the first three items in the first two pics had fresh grease on them. The other two items in the last 2 pics didn't seem to have grease and might have been there for some time, just by chance ended up under the Accord when it came to rest.
That looks like the CV joint (aka half shaft) It connects your wheel hub to the transmission. There should be some other ends of the cv joint still attached and be obvious where it broke. It could be the intermediate shaft, but the repair is similar.
Replacing the CV joint isn't terribly difficult. The hardest part is probably removing the axle nut from the hub. You'll need a 36mm or maybe a 32 mm socket to remove. An impact gun will help, but a ratchet will work. There are plenty of youtube videos on how to replace it.
You'll also need to inspect any ball joints tie-rod ends to see if they got damaged. The will have excessive play if they were damaged and will need to be replaced.
I'm not a fan of the autoparts stores CV joints. I've had their rebuilt CV joints make noise within a year.
You'll also want to inspect your other CV joint. The main cause of failure is a torn boot where the grease escapes and causes them to wear out quickly. You usually hear a clicking noise when turning when they are low on grease. It is possible you had corrosion under that rubber dampener and it sheared.
After removing some preliminaries, I cannot get this, I think it's called a control arm, off of the upper attachment. I removed the cotter pin and the 12mm castle nut, wacked the arm repeatedly with a hammer, but it's not budging off of that shaft. Please help.
From the pic, the upper ball joint looks like it lifted, but it is hard to tell. You can try removing the castle nut and see if it did release. WD-40 (or equivalent) may help. You can try threading the nut on, install the tire, then lower the car onto the tire. That may force it out.
You can buy or maybe rent a pitman puller from a parts store. This will grab onto the top part of the knuckle, then the bolt pushes up the ball joint shaft. Just install the castle nut upside down to prevent marring up the ball joint threaded portion.
At the local AutoZone, which of these 3 tools do you recommend borrowing? I want to be sure it's the right size and won't damage the rubber. It's called an upper ball joint that I need to pop free? Thank you very much for your help.
Since you are renting the tools for free, I'd get all 3. I'm not sure if the second item is too wide to fit over the top of the knuckle, so you'd have to measure it. I think there is a narrower version.
The order I'd go is, 2, 3, then 1. I've used versions of all three and the solid pitman puller works for me. The other thing you can do is just remove the bolts of the upper control arm from near the top of the strut tower and remove the upper arm with the knuckle.
That's what worked was a ball joint separator to pop it out. I have everything back together but have a problem tightening the ball joint nut on the upper control arm. Before popping the ball joint here, I mentioned above that with the nut off, the ball joint bolt was rotating with the upper control arm. Not sure if that was a warning of another problem, but when tightening the nut now, it seems to turn & turn without drawing the bolt in. Following is a pic of how deep so far I've been able to put on the nut. How can I put this nut on further? I don't notice anything else at the top of the upper control arm turning to clamp down on. I appreciate your help.
The turning of the ball joint while tightening doesn't mean there is an issue with the ball joint. I've run into this problem when using a hand tool to tighten. You'll have to load the suspension to push the knuckle into the upper ball joint. The best way is to put a jack under the lower control arm close to the lower ball joint. Jack up the suspension until the car slightly lifts off the jack stands. That should prevent the ball joint from spinning and allow you to hand tighten.
An impact wrench or a drill with a socket may spin fast enough to tighten without loading the suspension.
03-03-2023, 01:53 PM
Breakdown, Transmission? Broken shaft
