Homemade lift tore my axle boots

[mikewilke77]

PICS I put the homemade 2" lift in my loyale about three weeks ago. Yesterday she started smoking on me. Turns out to be axle grease on the exhaust. Both inside boots on basicaly new axles were torn. Anyone else have this issue? How do I avoid this in future lifts.

 

Thanks Mike

Edited July 22, 2010 by mikewilke77
add pics

[idosubaru]

i installed a 2" lift on my XT6 and it already sits fairly high with the air suspension, with front axles at a hard angle. new aftermarket axles vibrated after i installed the lift so i installed rebuilt MWE axles I had in my garage from a previous car but didn't put many miles on them. those boots, not that old, also tore on my first road trip. after rebooting them, i think what actually happened was that those axles, while new, had sat for awhile in my garage and rubber dried out. the rubber appeared "old", not glossy and shiny like new boots.

 

i rebooted them and they've been fine since then. might want to just try new boots. if they're close to the exhaust then the heat isn't going to help them, a heat shield might help.

 

the funny thing is that the axles were vibrating horribly all the way back from Colorado to WV - like 1,500 or 2,000 miles or whatever it is. I had to pack grease inside the cracked boots at every gas fill up and alternately gas/brake to diminish the vibrating when it got bad. might have hosed them for the long term but they're perfectly tight and smooth now with fresh grease and a reboot. Go MWE!

Edited July 21, 2010 by grossgary

[Scott in Bellingham]

I put the homemade 2" lift in my loyale about three weeks ago. Yesterday she started smoking on me. Turns out to be axle grease on the exhaust. Both inside boots on basicaly new axles were torn. Anyone else have this issue? How do I avoid this in future lifts.

 

Thanks Mike

 

 

front or rear? , i would drop the rear diff 1"

[gwilson87]

My 2 inch lift destroyed my axles on the brat within 100 miles of varied driving. Older axles don't like to be stressed. If you do a strut top lift and cross member blocks so it lowers everything equally and lifts the body equally the axle angles will remain the same and should work better. If it was just a boot problem, re-boot and see how it does I guess.

[one eye]

All of mine are good, I have replaced almost all of the CV axles though....

 

Jeff

[987687]

I was having that issue with my GL. When it is parked the boot was actually sort of crumpled because of the axle angle. Which ate the boot up on a new axle. Now I've fixed the camber and it doesn't crumple up the boot. So I'll see how it goes like that with a new axle. I'm lifted about 2+1/4" up front.

[mikewilke77]

Yeah there are the front axles the boots near the tranny.

Not only are they ripped, but they are now in two pieces. One axle is a little older but one was less than 2 months old.

 

Thanks everyone for the help

[bratman18]

I was having that issue with my GL. When it is parked the boot was actually sort of crumpled because of the axle angle. Which ate the boot up on a new axle. Now I've fixed the camber and it doesn't crumple up the boot. So I'll see how it goes like that with a new axle. I'm lifted about 2+1/4" up front.

 

Yours is 2 1/4 but they are on 2wd struts, they are a little bit shorter than 4WD struts, that's why I did it that way.

 

I have had this issue before as well, having it aligned half way decent will help too. When you lift it the suspension drops and actually makes the tires point in a little more than before, then whenever you take off, the kind of fight each other and the suspension lifts a bit more than usual in the front

[Markus56]

It's to be expected. That is part of the deal with a 2". You could drop the cross member, that would fix it.