I have a 1995 5.2L 4x4 dakota.
Yesterday I broke my front driver side cv shaft. Right now I'm working on removing it and need to know if I can drive in rwd with the shaft removed, without causing any problems. If I go to a junkyard for a new one what years and models share the same shaft?
Thanks.

 

No you can't drive without the CV shaft. But you can take it apart and just bolt back in the outer shaft (the one with the splines and large nut). If not you wheel hubs bearings WILL fall apart when you first take off. (Brian)

 

Thanks a lot.
It broke in the outer cv joint so I never had to touch the outer shaft to get the rest of it out. All I found In there were pieces of the bearing cage (no bearings), the bearing hub and joint housing looked fine.

 

crazy is rite i tried to do that and broke a wheel bearing just buy a new one i got both for 150 at advance

 

Yup, Crazy is right... I tried doing exactly that thinking the wheel bearing was a self-contained unit and my wheel fell off when I made my first turn on the test drive... pulled the bearing apart... that wasn't fun to drag my jack and tools down the road to fix it.

But if you cut off the boot and clean out all the grease, there is a clip you can pull open and the shaft will come apart. Then, again, like Crazy said, you can just put in the outer part. The nut CV axle nut gets tightened to 190 ft*lbs.

 

I still have the outer shaft in and it drives fine. It looks like all I need is the bearing cage and the bearings. Is this something I could find at any auto parts store?

 

I believe you can buy a rebuild kit. Check www.autozone.com or www.napaonline.com

 

I'm installing my new cv shaft today, does anyone know the size of the hub nut?

 

It is 32mm.