Thread: Rolling chassis without cv joints

I am getting ready to pull the motor and tranny out of my 1999 GT. Once I remove the cv axles from the tranny is it possible to put the tires back on the front of the vehicle. This would allow me to have a rolling chassis while working so that I can push it in and out of the garage a little bit for more room. Will the strut support the weight? Will it still roll good enough for what I need?

Sorry for the newbie question just never gave this much thought and wondered if it had been done before.

It's not good on the wheel bearings but you could.

Thanks dsmuts...never thought about the wheel bearings. Guess I will only do it as a last chance option if I just need that extra bit of room for the lift. The worst that would happen is that I end up replacing the front hub assemblies, but probably not a bad thing considering the 199xxx the car has on it.

I don't understand why it's not good for the wheel bearings. The torque on the axle nut is to seat the axle splines in the wheel bearing to keep from having play and stripping out the axle or inside of the wheel bearing.

Do it w/o a single worry. The wheel bearings are what hold the car's weight. The CV's have movement to pull and push based on suspension movement. They hold no weight of the vehicle. You can pull drivetrain, axles, brakes and still have a rolling chassis. If you'd like any proof, there's one sitting in my front yard. W/o motor/trans I can push it around pretty easily by myself.

I heard that the nut on the end of the cv joint preloads the bearing and without it it can do damage.

Just a sarcastic side note: How can you hurt a W body wheel bearing any more than taking out of the box? We all know, once they are out of the box....it's going to fail.

I don't know about pre-loading them with the axle nut being torqued. However, I do know you can screw up one pretty quick by over tightening the axle nut. Seen it quite a few times with morons and their impacts.

"However, I do know you can screw up one pretty quick by over tightening the axle nut. Seen it quite a few times with morons and their impacts."

I've heard this.. yet I watch dealership guys zip them on with impacts, watch my buddy who has his own shop zip them on and I learned to zip them on with impacts. Oddly enough the failure rate isn't any better/worse than torquing properly. I know what you are saying and agree, proper torque should be followed. Meanwhile...I'm going to keep zipping them on unless someone requests otherwise.