My 2005 Dodge Ram 4x4 (4Dr, 5.7L, SLT, yada yada yada) had a horrible noise emanating from underneath, metal on metal grinding noise, which I was able to track down the the CV Joint on the Front Drive Shaft (Between the Transfer case and the front end) so I removed it as I read somewhere on these forums that is a very bad and possibly very expensive mistake to other drive train parts if it fails completely, so it is out of my truck, sitting on my workbench, rendering my 4x4 into a 4x2. I ordered a brand new lifetime warranty (like that's somehow important on a 15 year old truck, lol) complete shaft with all new parts on both sides for 265.00 shipped to my front door, but I also bought a "REBUILD KIT" for the old axle that I took out of my truck so that i could rebuild it and have a spare since there wasn't a core charge on the new axle.

My question is: How do you remove the spline housing, race and carriage from the drive shaft to actually rebuild it??? I can't find any information on this this at all, I find the rebuild kit everywhere, but how to actually rebuild the CV Joint on the old shaft evades me.
Any help will be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance.

 

I think there is just a kinda snap ring inside the CV joint, and if you whack it with a hammer a few times, it should come off. (don't have to pull the snap ring first, it just stays in place.)

 

Did you take the steel ***** out before taking this picture, or did they fall out while you were driving? That's about as bad of a CV joint as I've seen.

 

Actually yes, I took the ball bearings out in hopes that there was a way to remove the rest of the CV Unit.

 

Thank you, I've got a couple of good sized hammers, I'll give it a shot.

 

what do you get with a rebuild kit?