Installed new passenger side half shaft this weekend -- meticulously double checked everything before and after reassembling everything. Took it out on test-drive -- everything good. Nice and smooth down the road; I come to a stop sign, and right as I attempt to pull away I hear a HORRIBLE SOUND. I immediately put the car in neutral and pushed it to the side of the road. I get it towed home and remove the half shaft to reveal exactly what I pictured when I heard that horrible grinding sound pulling away (attempting) from the first stop sign. Picture attached (I realize it's not the best picture with the lighting and the angle). You can see the receiver splines (the splines inside the transmission) are in tact all the way around, but the short section of splines on the half shaft (beyond the circlip -- sorry I did not include a picture) were quite ground down and left some very fine particulate inside the receiving splines. At the very minimum, I am looking at a new half shaft (another brand new one that is) and several drains/fills on the transmission no? What else is recommended in the "clean up" after a mess-up like this. What went wrong (obviously that half shaft was not seated properly, against me efforts at seating it and then doube-checking)? Thankfully, half shafts can be replaced easily enough... but transmissions not so easily -- so I am glad they made the splines on the half shaft very soft and the receiver splines (does someone have a technical name for this?) very hard and resilient so that they do not strip. Looking for advice, help, insights, etc (and something along the lines -- "there there kid, it aint the end of the world, all you need to do is... XYZ"). Thanks in advance.

 

Drain and fill until no more metal flakes. New half shaft.

Did you ever figure out what went wrong? Was it just not seated 100%?

 

Thanks for asking and for following up. Hopefully, this will help some poor soul in a similar predicament in the future. It was not seating correctly -- but from the outside, it looked totally seated (we are talking at the transmission end). And you never want to force it in there with heavy hammering lest you warp the splines. Luckily, the splines inside the transmission (shall we call it the CV receiver) are much MUCH harder by design (thank you Honda) so as to wear down the CV splines should they not couple properly. So the new splines on the new shaft were ground down enough to warrant tossing it and replacing it with a new one (and flushing out the transmission fluid -- no flakes got in there, they stayed on the receiver side where I could easily clean them out. So it all went back together great and with zero issues. Thank GOODNESS!