How to Replace Front CV Axle Seals 2007-14 Toyota FJ Cruiser

Hey friends, it's Len here at 1A Auto. Today I'm working on a 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser. I'm going to be replacing some axle seals. It's going to be a very easy job, and I want to be the one that shows you how to do it. If you need these or any other parts, you can always check us out at 1AAuto.com.

Okay, so what we're going to do first is we're going to take off these six lug nuts, 21-millimeter. You can use a ratchet and a socket, if you want or your air gun. There we are. Get the wheel broken free. Drop this down, wheel out of the way. Okay, so now we're just going try to push back the caliper a little bit. I'm just going to go like this. Just try to push back these pistons best I can. This is just to release the pads from the rotor. Cool, okay. The rotor can move around freely. If we need to, we can push them back a little further in a minute.

Now we're going to remove the caliper. One of the first things we need to do is take off this clip right here. Generally, cutters worked pretty good for this to grab onto it. I'm going to grab some in a second here. Here we are. Now this line can move around. It's very important, so when you take your caliper off, it can move around a little bit. I'm going to use a 12-millimeter up here on this bolt. That's going to remove this bracket, so it can move around. Get the socket off of there. There we are, okay. That bracket can move around freely.

I'm going to take these off right here. If it's easier and you wanted to, you could take off the outer tie rod end. I'm probably going to do that. That way there I can turn this, and I can get to those bolts easier. Just grab some cutters. Here we are. Just wiggle this around. If you have a new cotter pin, you don't have to worry about saving this one. If you don't, you're going to have to try to save it. We do have new ones, so I'm not super worried about it. This one doesn't look like it's coming out, so I'm just going to cut that off of there.

Tire rod end nut is a 19-millimeter. there we are, took that off of there, 19-millimeter. I'm just going to give the knuckle a couple bonks. I want to be careful not to damage the threads on the tire rod or hit the boot. Super important you don't break your boot open. If you do, you'll have to replace the outer tie rod end. All right. Around this way. There we are.

Now when we go to install this we're going to have to make sure that we get that cotter pin out of there. Okay. We want to put a new one in there. We'll set this aside. Now we can pivot this, and we can do what we need to do. We're going to use a 17-millimeter to remove the two bolts for the caliper to the knuckle. Same thing to the other one. At this point, the caliper may come down. You want to make sure you hold onto it, so it doesn't fall down and hang too far.

Bolt number two is the same as the first. We'll set it aside with the other one. Now I want to hang the caliper, not by its flex hose, obviously. Just grab whenever you've got, coat hanger or something that everybody would have. There you are. We can remove our front rotor.

Okay, so now we're going to take off this cover right here. It's just a tin cover, so you don't want to completely destroy it. Along the hub and the, the cap itself there's a little lip. There's kind of like a little a gap. Hopefully, you can try to get a pry bar, or screwdriver, or whatever you've got in there. You just kind of want to get in between, break it free. If this bends a little bit, that's okay because you can just bend it back if you have pliers or anything like that. Like I said, you just don't want to damage it too bad because it needs to create a good seal.

Okay. Let me see if I can get something else in there. It looks like we're pretty close. Just get this here. There's our cover. It's not too damaged. I could try to straighten that out a little bit. When I go to reinstall this I'm just going to use a little bit of RTV or a gasket maker. It's just going to help keep moisture out of here and protect this nut area. I'll set the cap side. We're going to remove this cotter pin. I'm going to use my cutters. Once again, if you have a new cotter pin, you can go ahead and cut it. If you don't, you need to try to save it because you do need to have the cotter pin in there. I have access to new cotter pins, so I'm going to cut this. Just watch your eyes.

This is a little locking thing. Okay. It just slides over the nut there ,and then you line up the slots with the hole and put your cotter pin through. It makes it so this not can't loosen up when you're driving down the road. Not that it should. You're going to have it torqued down anyway. It's just precautionary. We'll set this aside because we're going to reuse it. Now we're going to take off this nut, so I'm going to grab the socket we need and we'll move along. We're going to take off this nut right here, 36-millimeter. It's easiest with an air gun. If you don't have access to an air gun, what you're going to want to do is you're going to grab a bar.

You're going to bring the vehicle closer to the ground and set this up against your lug studs. Just like this, pretty much. When you go to loosen up this nut, your hub won't be able to turn. You can use your 36 with a long ratchet. Break it free. It'll come loose with an air gun. You don't need to worry about that. Just hold this. Easy peasy. Okay. Now you want to try to push your axle in. This one feels like it moves a little bit. We know we're in good shape on that. I'm going to go with a little bit of penetrant here. Let it do its job. It's going to hang out in there. Yeah.

That's moving freely. We're going to take off this outer tire rod end nut. Bonk that out of there. Now we can turn this. Next what we want to do is we want to disconnect the ABS wire from the sensor itself. We're going to take it off of here, here. We'll get it off of here just so it's out of the way. All right, and we'll try to just move the ABS wire out of the way, so we don't put any tugs on this because what we're going to need to do, optimally, is remove this knuckle, so we can get the axle out of here.

What I'm going to do, I'm going to try to get my pocket screwdriver in here right like this. I'm just going to see if I can get that to do its thing. When I go in between right here where this white dot is, there's a little nub, like a squeezy nub. You can't grab with your thumb, obviously, because it's in there. You need to use something small like this. Wedge it in. Give it just a little pry, and it lifts up on that little lock right there. Okay. When that lifts away, you can just grab this. Wiggle it.

Disconnect your ABS wire. You always take a peek. Make sure there's no funny colors in there. No reds, greens, glues, rust, dirt, water. That looks really great. We can move along. We'll start disconnecting these. Just use your pocket screwdriver still. Stick it in there. It should lift right up. Okay. Do the same thing to the other one right along the edge. It lifts right up.

Okay. This one doesn't look like we have to do anything with it because it's very far out of the way. I'm really not worried about that. Now when we try to take the knuckle off of here we don't have to worry about the ABS wire getting a tug and/or breaking because last thing you want to do is break your ABS wire or your ABS sensor. It's going to cost you a couple more bucks, and who needs to spend more money? Let's do it right.

That's out of the way. We're safe with that, we can move on to the next step. We're going to take off this sway bar link right here. Okay. To do that, we're going to hold right along here. You can use some locking pliers if you want, or you can find the wrench that fits along it. Then you're going to take off this nut right here. We'll grab the tools, and I'll show you how.

Now I'm going to take off the sway bar link. This is a 1A Auto sway bar link. I'm going to use a 24-millimeter on the link side and an 18-millimeter for the nut side. Remove that nut. We'll set this aside. I'm just going to get this link out of here. Grab my pry bar. Okay, we're cruising. This cotter pin right here is going to have to come out. It's kind of a funny cotter pin though on the backside that curls around. Right here, normally, you would have two straight pins that go straight through this. This one has one that goes through it ,and then the other one goes around the outside ,and it curves like this. You want to grab that leg, pull it out and away. Bring it down. Then you should be able to walk this out of here. If you can't, with the small screwdriver, just grab some cutters, and then pull it out.

That's what it looks like. Just like I mentioned, it was through like this and there was a little hookie doo. It goes around the backside there. We're going to remove this nut and then we're going to put it back on a few threads. We're going to give the knuckle a couple bunks and try to break it free from the upper control arm. I'm going to use my 19-millimeter to remove this nut. Safety glasses, of course. Here we are. We'll take it off just so I can show you, but then I'm going to put it back on, like I said, a few threads because now what I'm going to do is I'm going to bonk right here on the knuckle. I'm going to be careful for my boot. I don't want to damage my boot. I'm just going to hit right here. Once this breaks free, it's going to want to drop down. That's the purpose for the nut being on there. If you don't have that, and you just let this drop down, it can swing down and hit you in the face. Safety first, that's the number one concern here at 1A Auto. I'm just going to go ahead and hit right here.

It broke free. Pull down on it like that, if you want. I'm going to slowly bring this down ,so it can't hit me in the face. There we are. Cool. This is pretty much ready to come out at this point. We just have two more bolts down at the bottom here that we're going to remove, one here, and one here. Once we do that, the knuckle is going to be ready to separate from this bracket right here. We can draw it right out, and then we'll take off the axle.

Here we go. I'm going to use a 19-millimeter socket. That's what the boat looks like. Set that aside. I'm going to hold the knuckle at this point. Bolt number two, the exact same as the first. Now the knuckle is going to pull straight off just like this, and we've removed our left front knuckle. Now I'm going to use something as simple as a small bungee cord here. I'm just going to go around the axle and the strut, and that's just for safety sake because what I'm going to do next is remove this axle. I'll be doing that, if I can get this thing on there. There we go. I'll be doing that by trying to drive the axle out of the front differential. Once it breaks free, it has the possibility of coming off, hitting the ground. I'm going to be under there so I don't want to get hurt. I'm just going to put that under there, and we're going to go ahead and remove this axle now.

I'm going to use a large pry bar. I'm going to try to grab on this lip. I'm going to try to pry the axle out. When the axle comes out, it's going to go in this direction. Let's ee if I can get over here. It doesn't feel like it wants to go there either. The axle isn't coming out that way, which is common. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't hurt to give it a try.

Now I'm just going to come underneath it like this, and I'm going to give my bar a couple of bonks and see if I can drive this out. Looks like it's starting to come out a little bit, so we're going in the right direction. I'm just going to get this up in there. If you wanted to, you could try to take down your skid plate. We got a little bit of gear oil. As you remove this, there's going to be fluid that comes out from around the seal and the axle. It's going to come down. You want to make sure it goes into your collection bucket. Now I'm just going to pull the axle out of here, or pry it. It depends on what we need to do.

There we are. Now we're going to take off our bungee cord or whatever you use to tie up your axle, or maybe you didn't even use anything. That's up to you. It's your prerogative. We'll pull the axle out through here. Now we've removed our left run axle. Easy peasy. Okay, so here we go. This right here is the seal. It goes on the back side of the bearing, keeps moisture out of there, protect the bearing so it can go on, and on, and on. I'm just going to use a pry bar and my hammer. You can use whatever you need to, but essentially, we want to try to drive this seal up and away.

There we are. We removed our seal. We'll grab our new one. We'll compare it real quick, and we'll be able to install it. I'm just going to put a little bit of a silicone paste here just along the spring. This is just going to help prevent it from falling out when I go ahead and tap it in. There's a spring located on the backside, which is the side we're on here, and then there's one also on the front side right in there. We're going to do the same thing to both sides just a little bit. If you don't have silicone paste, you can go ahead and use something like a Vaseline or whatever you might have, maybe even a little bit of axle grease, if you had to. Just basically anything to keep the spring in there. Just from the vibration of trying to put your seal in, sometimes they like to pop off. Okay, so we get that. We took our rag. Go right up and along here. We can take our seal, set it right down on there just like that.

Now what you want to do is you want to take a punch of some sort. You want to go along this lip right here, not up along here. You can try to give it a quick bonk with a hammer just to get it kind of settled in up on the edge here, but if you paint it over, you're just going to have to straighten it out. It's your prerogative. What I like to do is start one side a little bit just like that. I'm going to give it a quick bonk. That kind of gets it started for me. Now I just go like this. I'm just going to work my way around the whole seal here. Try to get it down all the way. Once that's down, we can move ahead to the next step.

Bring it down some more here. You can hear the difference when it's sitting up high and when it's actually sitting against the knuckle. Just take a peek. Make sure it's sitting down all the way around. It is. My spring didn't pop out on the outside. It's not hanging down on the inside. I'd say we're good to go.

Now we're going to take out the axle seal out of the front differential. To do that, you can use something like a long pry bar. They also have seal removal tools. You can use one of those if you have access to one. All I'm going to do is go up against the inside edge on the top there and the outside edge along the bottom with my pry bar. Apply some pressure. It's going to pop off. Fluid is going to come out, of course, more fluid than already has. We still got our bucket under there. We have our eye protection. Now I'm just going to give this a little tug and see if it comes apart. There we are. Easy peasy.

That's what our seal looks like. I'm going to use my 12-millimeter with an extension and go right up in this hole right here. There's a bolt that goes up into the body of the vehicle. That's what it looks like. We're going to do the same thing to the others. Watch out for dripping fluid. It'll be the last one here. Slide this down. It's hooked on to ... There it is. There we are. We removed our shield. We'll get this out of the way.

On the inside of this seal right here, there's a small spring. It just goes around. That's where the axle is going to ride up against. The axle is going to be in here, but we're putting a little bit of lube here. It's just to hold this small little spring in there, maybe a little bit where the axle is going to ride. Why not?

Now we're going to take this and a rag. We're going to clean up the area in the differential. Get it so it's nice and clean. Take our seal with the rubber flappiness facing out. I'm just going to kind of get it a little started in here. I'm just going to go kind of crooked a little bit just so it's started. I'm going to take a punch. I'm just going to try to drive this in. We're going to go until this is flush with the differential. Try with a different punch here. See if I can make it happen. Get that down on there. A little bit right there. just try to get that down on there. Looks pretty good. There we are. We'll grab our axle.

Now we're going to go ahead and install our axle. Just going to bring it over to the seal. Try to get it just past it. Here we are. Shake the axle around a little bit. You might notice that it really doesn't want to go in very easy. That's because at the end it has a little lock clip. I'm just going to go ahead and hold the axle. I'm going to give the end to bonk. I like to keep the note on there a little bit and use a rubber mallet. That way there, I can drive it without actually hurting any of the threads. You definitely don't want to mess up your threads. Take a look at it. It looks like we're getting close. There we are. Just a couple of light slams like that. Easy peasy. Broke a sweat. It's okay. All right, we can move on to the next step.

All right, so we'll get our knuckle. Now we're going to slide our axle into our knuckle. Bring the knuckle over the lower ball joint bracket. Take our two bolts. Try putting one in this hole, one in this hole. I'm going to go ahead and tighten this up with our 19-millimeter. Those are both tight. I'm just going to get this sway bar link up in here just like that, and we do this. We can use a pry bar. Go right in between one of the coils and the upper control arm. We can bring it down to where we need it.

I'm going to get my nut ready. I just need to get a few threads on it. There we are. Let's see. We've got our sway bar link nuts started here. Now we're going to tighten these down, and we'll get the torques back yet. I'm just gonna tighten this up. It's tight. I'm going to grab the torque spec for that. We're going to tighten this down too. We'll bottom this out with our 19. Here we are. We'll grabb the torque spec, we'll torque it down.

Now we're going to torque down the ball joint nut 81 foot pounds for the 19-millimeter. There we are, that's torqued. Now we just want to look at it. See where the ball joint, the hole in the ball joint is. It needs to line up with the next slot. At this point, we're going to need to tighten this a little bit more to get it so it lines up. Then I'm going to use my ratchet. You can see the hole and the slot are lined up. Now we're going to replace that cotter pin, this little pin right here, same thing we removed. We're just going to slide it back over just like we did before, and then pull it over the ball joint, so it clips into the slots. It can't fall out. It feels nice and tight.

I'm just going to go ahead and put on the axle nut now. I'm going to take my bar. I'm just going to go straight across the studs just like this. That's going make it so the hub can't turn while I torque this down. I going to get my torque wrench, and we're going to torque this down to 173 foot pounds with my 36-millimeter socket. Here we go, 173 foot pounds. There we are. Just hit it one more time. Torqued.

Now it's time to put on our new lock. This just slides over the nut. You line up the slot with the hole, put your new cotter pin through. Then you could choose which way you want a pin it. Some people like to make one of these ears go one way, one go the other. It really depends on what you want to do. It's your prerogative. I'll leave it up to you. Some people will bring it up around the front. Basically, as long as you bend them over and the cotter pin can't come out on its own, and then the axle nut can't lock unlock on its own, you're doing all right. That's never going to come off on its own. We're all set.

Now we'll grab our cap. I'm just going to use a little bit of a gasket maker here. Just go right along the edge. There we are. We're going to put this right into the hub just like that. Grab my rubber mallet. Give it a couple of bucks. There we are. Let's make sure it's in. No moisture is going to get in there. Now if you want to clean it up, go ahead and clean it up. Just go around it. do the best you can. It doesn't have to be anything too pretty. It's your vehicle, maybe do one to look pretty. It's going to be hidden though, FYI. Get that out of there. Cool. I'd say that looks decent. It's getting worse the more I touch it, so I'm just going to stop.

We're just going to plug in our ABS wire. Listen for it. Clip. Give it a nice little tug. It feels good. It goes right in these little plastic brackets here. I'm going to push that down. One second here. I'll just get this on there. We'll just clip these in. ABS wire can't go anywhere. It's not going to get caught on the axle anywhere. It should be good to go.

Now we'll put on a little bit of copper never seize. Perfect. We'll grab our rotor, and we can move along. All right, we've got our rotor. Put it right on here. I'm just going to grab a lug nut. I'm going to try to put this on as far as I can. This is going to help me make sure that the rotor can't move around on the hub. The more it moves around, the more chances you have of rust flakes falling in between the rotor and the hub, which will cause a brake pulsation down the line.

We'll just kind of give it a little spin like this. I don't hear any brake grinding. The backing plate isn't hitting up against there. It's very common for it to happen. Maybe you were moving something around, you tweaked the backing plate a little bit. This one sounds good. Carefully put it back over. Grab your mounting bolts. If you want to use a little thread locker on these, you can. It's your prerogative. For the purpose of this video, I'm not going to worry about it. We're just going to turn these all the way in and then we'll torque them down.

Now we're going to torque down these two bolts to 91 foot pounds using a 17-millimeter. I'm just going to turn that. I'm going to check them again real quick. We can set our bracket back up. We've got the hole for the bolt, and then the hole for the ear on the bracket. Just going to go like this. I'm going to turn it, so there's less pressure. It's going to come up here. A bolt like this, you definitely don't need to use thread locker on it. It might actually be better to use a little bit of never seize, if you have access to some. I'm not going to worry about it for the purpose of this video and use my 12-millimeter, tighten this up.

We're going to take our line. Try to bring it down, so we can see the groove. We're going to use this clip. This is going to go through with the little flippy ear facing our thumb. We'll just try to bring it in. Sometimes getting these in is pretty difficult. I'm just going to loosen this up again real quick a little bit. Maybe that'll let us get some more movement out of this. It lets us set up where we need it. As soon as I let go, it goes back.

Now I'm just going to bonk that in. This is what I had in my hand. Small hammer would work for this. Snug this back up tight. Tight, tight, all that's tight. I've got this right here. When we took it apart took we had to break the cotter pin, so I'm just going to need to drill that out real quick. I'll do that. We get the hole through that, easy peasy.

Now we'll just clean it off. We can tighten it down and put a brand new cotter poin in there. Now we're just gonna take the tie rod nut. We're going to bottom it out, and then we'll go ahead and torque it down using my 19-millimeter. We'll go with the assumption that it doesn't want to tighten down. It's just spinning inside the the knuckle there. Something you can do, if you have access to a long pry bar, just apply upward pressure. Be careful, of course, for your axle wherever you need to go, that you're not pressing on your axle. I'm going to keep moving around until I find a nice safe spot. That'll be all right. I'm just going to apply upward pressure. There we are.

We're going to go ahead and torque this down, and then we're going to have to bring it continually clockwise until we get to the closest slot that lines this up with our locking point. We're going torque this down to 67 foot pounds. That's torqued. Now it's important to pay attention to, like I said before, where the holes are. There's a hole right here, but it kind of lines up with the castle nut, the castle part of the castle nut. We need to bring it a little further until it lines up.

I'm just going to use my ratchet. I'm just going to go as far as I need to here, a little bit more. There we are. Slide that right through. It's your prerogative how you want to set this. Some people go side to side one ear to one side, one ear to the other side. Some people go over the top. As long as it's bent, and it can't come out on its own, you're doing all right. You do you, Boo Boo. Get that on there. That cotter pin can go nowhere. There's no way that this nut's going to be able to loosen up on its own and the tire rod won't be able to come off causing the wheel to go out of control. We're tight, tight. Everything's tight coming around here. Perfect, clear to move on to the next step.

Now that you finished that service, you want to make sure that you top off the fluid. To do that, you'd want to take out the fill plug or the check plug. Once that's out, you can stick your gloved finger, or if you have a little pick, you can put it inside and just see if you feel a little bit of fluid right there. If you don't feel any fluid, just go ahead and top it off. You're going to use a little bit of 80W-90 weight, GL-5. Very simple. Once it's topped off, you just want to make sure that you put the plug back in. Snug it up so it's nice and tight and off you go.

Now we're going to get the wheel up on here. I've got a couple of lug nuts in my hand. I'm going to take the wheel, put it up against my leg. I'm going to lift with my leg slash/ab muscles just like that. I'm going to try not to use my back. I don't want to hurt my back. Go like this. Lift This up. There we are. I'm holding the wheel. Get One lug nut started on there. Number two started on there. Now I can release the wheel, and I can grab the rest of my lug nuts.

We have all of our lug nuts on. We still have to snug them up. To snug them up, what we want to do is go in a snowflake pattern on this. Generally speaking, you go criss-cross, but this is more like snowflake. You go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Never go around in a circle. You go ahead and go around in a circle, you tighten it up along this way, pulls it in. You get over to this side, you think you have a tight. You might even torque it down, and it's still cocked off to the side a little bit. You go ahead hit a bump. Boom. Next thing you know your wheel is ready to fall off. Just go ahead, go criss-cross, star pattern, whatever you want to call it.

I'm just going to bottom it out, and then we're going to torque them down after. We're going to go ahead and torque down the wheel now to 85 foot pounds with our 21-millimeter socket. We're going to continue in our snowflake pattern or criss-cross, whatever you want to call it. Start here. Go to the opposite side of the wheel. There we are. We know they're all torqued. If you want to hit them again, hit them again. Small price to pay for a little bit of safety. There we are. Easy peasy.

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