How to change the left axle on 94 Protege?

Question

Digram if possible

Answer 1

Buy a repair manual like the rest of us had to do. Not everything is free.

Answer 2

If it's like my Honda:

Take the wheel off. Remove the nut on the end of the axle. This might take a pipe on the end of a breaker bar, as it's probably on there pretty tight.



There will be a nut holding the ball joint together. Pop out the ball/pitman joint. You'll need a special tool for that...or, you ought to use one. It's kind of horseshoe shaped with a screw coming into the middle of it. It hooks onto one side of the joint, and you use the screw to push the other side out. You disconnect one side of it, and swing the hub outwards. The axle should slide right out. If not, tap it with a hammer a bit, it'll come loose.

Yank the axle out of the transaxle.

You should use this opportunity to replace the seals where the axles go into the transaxle case. Mine were about 8 bucks each. (oh yeah...if you need to replace one axle, you're going to need to do the other pretty soon, too)


It's putting things back together where the details REALLY MATTER.

YOU MUST HAVE THE PROPER TORQUE SPECIFICATIONS. For both the nut that holds the hub onto the steering (mine's a castle nut, so I just got it tight and put the pin in...pretty much CAN'T come off), and ESPECIALLY the nut on the end of the axle. If you don't torque that correctly, you may destroy your bearings, or the axle might come out.

Make sure you have a torque wrench that can accurately go to the right level of torque. (My honda took 180 ft-lbs, so I needed a damn big wrench...most cars are more like 150)

You should be able to do this in less than an hour the first time. More like 20 minutes after that.

Get a manual, or go to a Protege owner's forum and ask for the torque specifications. YOU HAVE TO HAVE THAT INFORMATION.


This isn't a hard job, you can do it yourself, but you have to have the right tools and the torque specs.

Answer 3

Please follow Ian's instructions to a T. You can rent a pitman arm puller to release the lower ball joint as he describes in Autozone. They work sweet. You may need a three jaw puller to actually press the half shaft free of the wheel bearing.