When I blew my diff I think I damaged my driver's side CV, and then I took it out wheeling for the first time since, and finished it off. I was just wondering if the Sidekick and the Vitara/Grand have the same driver's side CV shaft or not. Or if I can just replace the race that I cracked in half with one off a Sidekick.

don't bother calling wreckers for them, they want between 150 to 200 a side, dealer price is 280 for the left side, and 398 for the right LOL


my cost at the parts place i deal with is 97 bucks NEW not reman.......


ps: ill look tomorrow, i think i still have pieces of the ones you gave me, all i needed was the flange.

-Lance

Ok, still having problems with this.

Originally, I just got a CV from a Sidekick at a wrecker and pulled the bearing retainer off it and put my original CV shaft together and ran with it. Seemed to be working fine until I tried out 4wd, turning right in a flat parking lot. I took it apart and what happened was the whole inboard (diff end) joint had completely popped out of the green cup in my picture. This is probably what happened the first time too.

So I bought a brand new CV axle and installed it today. Took it out of my shop in 2wd with the hubs unlocked, no problem. Drove across the road to the gravel patch, put the t-case in 4L and locked the hubs, drove straight for about 5 feet, turned left for about 5 feet, and turned right for about 5 feet and then all hell broke loose! I took a look underneath and sure enough, the CV joint had separated again. It was binding so badly that it somehow compressed my whole left-front suspension to the point that I could only see a few inches on my strut piston instead of the usual 5 or 6".

Removing it was a pain in the arse as well. The first broken shaft I removed, I just used an angle grinder cause I knew it was totally broken anyways. This one I thought maybe I could repair so I had to use a 2 foot long prybar between the shaft that goes into the diff and the CV.

So pretty much it looks like my CV is too short. I never had any problems with CV's with my old aluminum 1997 Sidekick diff, but it seems like as soon as I put in the steel diff with the shift-on-the-fly removed and 5.13 gears installed, something ain't quite right and it doesn't want to work.

I know there is a 1" offset to the Grand Vitara diff because of the SOTF, but is that 1" in the carrier or in the 3rd? I'm thinking it's in the 3rd because I phoned Hawk and they said the Grand Vitara pound-in 3-bolt shaft is about 1 or 1.5" longer than the same part on a Sidekick, but they told me I needed to run the Sidekick pound-in shaft in the Grand Vitara steel diff. Is it possible that they got mixed up and I'm actually supposed to be running a Grand Vitara pound-in shaft?

Advice/insight urgently needed as I have a 1200km road trip to northern BC coming up on Saturday!

Nope.  sidekick inner shaft is used (or you can just lop off an inch with a chop saw).  This has to move over just like how you used the Sidekick inner stub on the other side.

You are running a Kick open 2-pin carrier, right?

Now, the only difference I am aware of is the intermediate shaft length, no the design of the CV itself.  A Kick CV shaft on a GV would too short, and would pull apart when the suspension is cycled.

Isn't this stuff great?

Ok. Are you 100% SURE that the Sidekick CV is too short? The parts store I dealt with assured me they were the same, although looking at a different parts supplier the part numbers are different.

Yes I am running a Sidekick open diff, pretty sure it was 2 pins.

Seems like the problem is what you describe though, cause it literally "pulls apart" when I steer. I did have to "stretch" the joint apart a bit to bolt it up, which again leads me to believe the CV is too short.

sorry man, i cant find the other half of that shaft, any luck with this on your end?  did you make a spacer?

Lance, I don't think that I need that part anyways. I made a half inch spacer but I havent got to try it yet since my hub malfunctioned . Hubs should be rebuilt tomorrow and then I will install. Fingers crossed

Installed the 1/2" spacer and rebuilt hubs today, works good so far.

Scratch that, it still does not work properly. With the 1/2" spacer, I went 4x4ing this last weekend and I blew the driver's side CV for the 4th time since December 5th...that's just about 1 per weekend.

I don't understand why I am having so much difficulty and frustration with this $*!())(! front end. The steel diff and the aluminum diff are exactly the same dimensionally...why is my CV pulling apart all the time? I have diff drop brackets, my CV's are totally straight on flat ground, and I have run the vehicle with all 4 tires off the ground in 4Lo to ensure that the CV's are not binding at full droop, AND while turning.

What the heck do I do now? I am running out of patience...this is worse than a Jeep.

I was reading this the other day:

http://zukiworld.com/month_030104/feature_tsb_shiftontheflyremoval.htm

Don't know if it has anything you might have missed

Nope, I've only seen that form about ten billion times already! I followed it and the advice I was given by Hawk when I installed my aluminum Sidekick diff when I originally installed all my lift/tires/gears/etc and it worked a-ok until I intalled the steel diff. Which is very odd because they are exactly the same dimensions, just not the same material.

Ok. Are you 100% SURE that the Sidekick CV is too short?

Sorry for the slow respone.

110% sure.  you need the GV axle from outerCV to innerCV on the Drivers side.  Its longer than the Kick Sport, which is longer than the standard Kick. Mainly, its the intermediate shaft that is the big difference. Get a junk yard or Pick-n-pull shaft from a GV and you should be fine.  Too bad you weren't closer, as the P-N-P near me has lots of GVs and XLs, and axles are just $35.

Install a stock GV complete axle, and if that blows on you, something else is at play here.

Ready for that solid axle yet?

Hmm...odd then, that when I ordered a brand new CV from the parts store they told me the Sidekick and the GV CV were the same.

Why would the CV's be different lengths, I thought the Sidekick and the GV were the same overall track width, just the frame on the GV was wider...nothing to do with CV lengths, cause the diff housings are the same sizes.

Anyway, I'm buying a 04 Tacoma this weekend and will be ridding myself of the Suzuki mess as soon as I can fix this thing and sell it.

PS- it is also HIGHLY odd that Hawk and Calmini both did not mention this when I asked them...and it's also HIGHLY odd that I never had any problems running the aluminum diff with the "wrong" setup according to you.

The SOTF article never said to swap out or do anything to the driver CV axle.  Only the Pass side, and that was ONLY the inner CV stub.  The driver side only needed the inner axle shaft (not the CV axle) to be changed with the Kick 26 spline one, and that is because of the movement towards to driver's side due to the use of the Kick or Sammy carrier.

All right buddy, my rig is set up EXACTLY like that. Please don't ridicule me online when you don't even know the whole story. It's not like I haven't made phone calls and got my hands dirty working on my own rig all the time. This forum is used to share information and help fellow Suzuki owners out when they can't figure things out on their own. Yes, a 5 minute Google search would have yielded me SOME answers, but definitely would not have solved my problems. I'm guessing you're probably waiting for a 13-page long response to what you have said, but I don't really have much to say. Like I said, this is the EXACT setup I was running with my aluminum diff, and the problems all started when I swapped to a steel diff. Never did I say that I was actually running a Sidekick CV, I was just inquiring as to whether they were the same.

Next, a quick search on Rock Auto (essential part look-up tool) would have shown you that the 3 models don't share the same part number, and there for, if interchanged, would result in catastrophic failure.

I did actually take the liberty of checking this out before I asked, but I figured it wouldn't hurt at all to ask just to see if anyone had any real-world, hands-on experience. Apparently I was wrong.

So, I find it really odd, that Hawk and Calmini, both of whom are experts in Zooks, both gave you wrong info.  All things being equal, either you asked less-than-clear questions or didn't understand the answers.  Or spoke with a non-tech employee.

Never did I say they gave me wrong info. Hawk Strictly Suzuki is the best place I know for technical questions and I followed their instructions for performing the aluminum diff swap, and it worked. I used all the same CV's and everything when I installed the steel diff and now it doesn't work. They weren't able to explain this. I don't think you have been able to either, so really, I don't think your post, or this one, for that matter, is helping anyone on this forum.

Thanks for putting an hour into your rant, but in reality you have not gotten yourself any further in life by bashing me down. Have a nice day. Flame on...