Hey guys,

Getting ready to do my wheel bearings here and I've been doing a little homework as it is my first try. My front drivers side wheel is making a grinding sort of noise especially at low speeds, hard cornering seems to make it go away. On the free way I can feel a sort of pulsation in the pedal and it just feels like something is wrong. I'm thinking it might be the wheel bearings due to the 217,xxx miles on the car. Today I tightened up the castle nut just to be sure, drove it around a bit and the noise was gone..... the cotter pin was intact, so I know the nut couldn't have been too loose. My question is could a castle nut be responsible for all of the noises I was hearing? Will this be a permanent fix or temporary? I have all the wheel bearings and am gonna hang onto them until I've driven a couple hundred miles just to see. Your guy's questions comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

A loose castle nut can be the sourse of All the symptoms you described and a lot more. Tighten it to 150 ft. lbs. Install the cotter key and check the other side. That should be a permenent fix,unless you drove around that way for quite a while.

 

Other than your wheel falling off,a loose castle nut will let the splines on the axle chew away the splines within the hub.

Yep - it could have damaged the hub splines - those are typically softer than the steel in the half-shaft so they get chewed up rather than the shaft.

 

If there was prolonged vibration involved it could have damaged the wheel bearings as well. They might be ok but they might fail in a few thousand miles.

 

GD

Thanks guys, I did drive for a while with the noise, it seemed to come and go, so I wasnt too worried about it for a while. Only time will tell I suppose.

I've been hearing the same sound for about 200 miles and thought it was just time for a new set of bearings. But after I read this I went out and pulled the hub cap and sure enough the nut was so loose i took the pin out and turned it off by hand. So I got out the torque wrench torqued it down to 150 lbs, was a little tricky trying to find just the right slot ended up having to back the nut off like 8mm to get the pin back through and now no noise, probably will need to be done before winter, but hey it's a nice surprise that it worked. When I bought the car I was told that the CV on that side was just replaced think they might not of put enough grunt into it when they put it back together. LOL

Hey man,I'm glad you caught that before bad things happend. In circumstances where I am between two castle nut notch's,I always go to the next tightest one..I guess what I'm saying is,for me,the torque value is secondary. I make sure that mofo is tight.

Yah i tried that but it wasn't turning any further and I didn't want to be way over torque. I figure a little tight is better too as the bearings will loosen as the age.

What you guys might be experienceing is a bad cone-washer. People beat the hell out of them trying to get the hub off and then they don't seat properly and lock down to the shaft. That causes them to shift and eventually to wear to a point where the axle nut is loose even though it was torqued to spec. If the nut comes loose again and the noise returns you are going to have to dissasemble things to inspect the hub, cone, and so forth. Replacement of the hub and cone is typical for this type of failure. Junk yard parts are usually sufficient if they aren't similarly damaged.

 

GD

what you guys might be experienceing is a bad cone-washer. People beat the hell out of them trying to get the hub off and then they don't seat properly and lock down to the shaft. That causes them to shift and eventually to wear to a point where the axle nut is loose even though it was torqued to spec. If the nut comes loose again and the noise returns you are going to have to dissasemble things to inspect the hub, cone, and so forth. Replacement of the hub and cone is typical for this type of failure. Junk yard parts are usually sufficient if they aren't similarly damaged.

 

Gd

 

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