when i buy new axles, what exactly does it come with? are the inner and outer cv joints part of the axle? what exactly is a half shaft? cv shaft?

If you buy an axle from a part store, it comes ready to install. New boots, rebuilt CV joints, and greased up. An axle and half shaft are the same thing, just different names.

If you buy one axle, halfshaft, cv joint it is all the same and it will be the whole thing for one side. From the inner, going into the trans., to the outer that sticks out past your rotor.

what's an abs axle?
somebody mentioned one of these in a different thread

There is a difference between axles with abs and without abs. If you have abs there is a toothed ring on the outer edge of the outer joint.When the axle is in, the ring is right up against the back of the spindle. If you have abs there is an abs sensor on your spindle that reads the notches in the ring while the axle is rotating. If you have abs, you have to have an abs axle otherwise you might get an abs light on your dash. If you don't know whether you have abs all you have to do is turn your key to on, where all your dash lights come on. If you see an abs light, light, you have abs. There should not be a price difference between these axles. Hope this helps.

Me and my boy Chris (nismoser) are going to be installing a new halfshaft on my nx2k on the driver side. I cant stand the infernal clicking anymore!! The cv axle is gonna cost me 70 bucks, then 80 for the core charge, so when i bring back the old one, i get my 80 bucks back. We will be undertaking this project within the month of may.