I decided to change my right side axle on my 93 civic lx. When I put the new one in I realized that it has some freeplay, you can move the cv in all direction a little. I replaced my left side axle a couple months ago and on that side it does not do the same thing, it is in and you can not move it around.

I have done some reading and it seems it could be the differential bearing. If I look in the hole with a flashlight nothing seems moved, ripped or bad, but I am not a specialist.

When I have everything together and spin the wheel you an see the cv joint spinning with the axle and moving slightly, instead of spinning in a perfect circle, is kind of hard to explain. The axle is all the way in. Any advice?

Is there anything I can do as a temporary solution? I was thinking of a big washer in between the cv joint and transmission as a spacer that way the cv joint cant "hang".

 

A little free play is normal, but the amount that you describe makes it hard to determine. Do NOT try to use washers or anything of the sort, it needs to be installed correctly. I suggest having more experienced eyes look it over. The diff bearings do not typical go bad like that but anything is possible.

 

Ok, well it is just a little free play, what got me worried is that the other side has no freeplay at all. I have taken it to two suspension shops, one said it was bad, the other said it was normal. I guess I should take it to a manual transmission repair shop to see what they say.

 

If you purchased a new auto parts store axle it could be defective. I avoid those cheap replacements because they tend to have quality control flaws, vibrations, poor fitment etc. But for most people its the most practical solution to fixing their daily driver. Good luck with it.

 

Ok, I have replaced the axle again, since it had a leaking boot they changed the whole thing for free. The new one does the exact same thing. When I took it out I tried to move anything inside the tranny, nothing would move up or down or side to side. If it were a bad differential bearing shouldn't I be able to move it. I can move the inner cv joint around without much effort. Why doesn't anything inside the differential move?

Anyways here is a video of how it moves, since I did not jack up the car it was kind of hard to move side to side, but it moved up and down.

I have changed the oil seal there and I still get leaking tranny oil from that side, a lot less, but it still leaks.

Also if it was a differential bearing wouldn't it move both inner cv joints? the other side's joint does not move around at all.