1998 chevy lumina (broken axel)

[hmerriam]

My son had his 1998 lumina sedan towed home because his passenger side axel broke loose from where it attaches below the engine. My question is am I looking at just replacing the axel assembly or are there parts where it connects that may have spilled into the road and are lost? He said he hit a pot hole when it happened.

Thanks, Harry

[maxwedge]

Originally Posted by hmerriam

My son had his 1998 lumina sedan towed home because his passenger side axel broke loose from where it attaches below the engine. My question is am I looking at just replacing the axel assembly or are there parts where it connects that may have spilled into the road and are lost? He said he hit a pot hole when it happened.

Thanks, Harry

Welcome to AF. We obviously cannot put your car on lift and inspect what happened, the " hitting a pothole '" issue says that most likely more than just the axle is a problem,as this does not hang down low enough to contact the pavement.

[jeffcoslacker]

Depends. If the lower ball joint split and pulled the CV shaft apart, it could be a mess. The CV shaft's parts are kind of trapped in compression when the suspension is together, the only way one would fall apart and break loose is if the spindle were seperated from the lower control arm, generally....It's possible a catastrophic failure of one of the CV joints could cause the shaft to seperate, but you would have been hearing godawful noise out of it for some time leading up to the failure....

[maxwedge]

Originally Posted by jeffcoslacker

Depends. If the lower ball joint split and pulled the CV shaft apart, it could be a mess. The CV shaft's parts are kind of trapped in compression when the suspension is together, the only way one would fall apart and break loose is if the spindle were seperated from the lower control arm, generally....It's possible a catastrophic failure of one of the CV joints could cause the shaft to seperate, but you would have been hearing godawful noise out of it for some time leading up to the failure....

Jeff, issue here is no one "really" knows what happened. But what you described is dead on.

[hmerriam]

Originally Posted by jeffcoslacker

Depends. If the lower ball joint split and pulled the CV shaft apart, it could be a mess. The CV shaft's parts are kind of trapped in compression when the suspension is together, the only way one would fall apart and break loose is if the spindle were seperated from the lower control arm, generally....It's possible a catastrophic failure of one of the CV joints could cause the shaft to seperate, but you would have been hearing godawful noise out of it for some time leading up to the failure....

Thanks for the quick response. It looks like all else is okay except that the tulip bearing end is out of the socket and the grease has spilled out. My son has just told me that the steering has been difficult to turn at low speeds for the last few weeks. I was able to spin the bearings a little with my fingers and the socket looks okay too.