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Axle nut always loose

C

CSVT1214

Addicted CEG'er
Joined
Nov 1, 2003
Messages
6,752
Location
Plainville, CT
Ok, I've been battling this problem for a while. Last year, I had my drivers side wheel bearing go bad. Started grinding on right hand turns. Ok, no big deal. It's the original bearing and last over 100k. Had the bearing removed and pressed with a new Ford OEM bearing. 2 months later, the car was making weird sounds from that corner and handling very poorly. I had no time to touch it or get it down to the shop since the car was a daily driver so it stayed like that for a while.

When it came time to swap winter wheels on, I jacked up the car and found I could shake around the wheel like crazy. I grabbed the axle nut and was able to spin it off by hand. At that point, I thought the shop never torqued down the axle nut. I figure I'll get the bearing replaced, again, replaced the nut and be on my way. Spring came and I swapped the knuckle from the parts car onto my car. It was pretty solid but very noisy, so I only used it for a week while the original knuckle was getting a new bearing pressed again. During that 1 week, the axle nut torqued down the week before had spun loose again. This time, the nut was replaced with a Ford OEM (instead of the GCK nut) and the knuckle with new bearing was installed. 3 days later, Brapple found the axle nut loose again. Torqued down, drove to SZ and loose by the time I got out there. Torqued again before the ride home, and loose again.

What the hell is causing it to do that? :help:
 
Axle threads could be the only other thing but im not really sure, you would know if there striped..How many ft lbs are you torqueing it down to it should be IIRC 200Ft lbs i might be wrong..
 
fordman302 said:
Axle threads could be the only other thing but im not really sure, you would know if there striped..How many ft lbs are you torqueing it down to it should be IIRC 200Ft lbs i might be wrong..
Click to expand...


210 to be exact ... we where pulling on it so hard that I had to get into the car and step on the brake as the car was starting to move even with the parking brake on .... I have no way a checking the torque but I cranked it down as much as I could ... as I have done in the past with my cars ...
 
Man i love my Impact..Doesnt sound like its striped umm if you can replace that axle since you already replaced the axle nut etc..Sorry im not much help..
 
If you can, use lock tite on those nuts. I had the same problem even with my DSS axle nuts torqued appropriately until I started apply locktite.
 
don't bother with any lock tite .... you problem is with the stub axle. when the nut loosens it causes slack in the splines and over time the splines in the stub axle have worn out ... this is alowing the axle to move and therefor the nut loosens up. sorry to say but you need to just replace the whole hub and maybe the axle if you feel like it. you could do just the stub axle but you would have to change the bearing again. As I thought and my father confirmed with me the axle needs to be a snug fit into the hub, you should have to pull it in, the axle shouldn't slide in easily.

if you want help changing it again let me know.
 
....humm...OK,just a thought.The stock Ford axle nut,the laminated type,has a thick washer as part of its assy,with a large diameter i/d to allow it to pull hard on the shaft without 'bottoming out' on the splines.If my memory is correct a lot of the 'aftermarket' nuts don't have this feature.This means the clamping force can be reduced once the nut is tight but it's not clamping hard onto the drive flange...catch my drift?I've never had issues with loose axle nut as long as I use the Ford part to the correct torque...Just an FYI,TH
 
its happenning with aftermarket and ford axle nuts ...the weekend before sz we put a new ford axle nut on when putting the hub w/new bearing back in, three days later it was loose and then again before leaving sz, about three days later and again after he got home ... each time we torque the hell out of it ....


i follow you on the difference between the aftermarket and ford axle nuts.

also when we installed the hub with new bearing the axle slight right into the stub axle, on all of my families cars we have had to pull the axle into the hub because the fit was so tight
 
IF the stub isn't a press fit into the hub then the splines in one of the two parts is worn and needs to be replaced. The looseness will allow the nut to come loose. Also - tighten the nut to 250ftlb with a GOOD torque wrench (not some hokey $20 one).
 
Stazi said:
IF the stub isn't a press fit into the hub then the splines in one of the two parts is worn and needs to be replaced. The looseness will allow the nut to come loose. Also - tighten the nut to 250ftlb with a GOOD torque wrench (not some hokey $20 one).
Click to expand...

You would actually be surprised how good those $20 ones work. My dad bought one from harbor freight and our friend brought over his $200 or however much he spent and said it was much more precise. So we put them to the test. We put them both at the same tq setting and latched them together and each person pulled away from the other person so the tq's were equal. Both clicked at the same time.
 
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