I have a 92 loyale 100,000 3AT 2WD. I have had this car for 6months. Been hearing a noise in the front end off and on. Thought maybe brakes needed changed. Until yesterday:banghead: While driving to work it started to make the noise in the front and everytime i let off the gas It started to pull to the left. As I accelerated nothing and made a grinding sound. Got the car stopped put in it D R 2 and 1. Nothing but nasty grinding sound. Thats when I thought It was not tranny but axle. So while the car was being loaded on flatbed for the expensive tow. The driver said something fell out of the left front so I grabbed it and it was a washer that had the word OUT on it and a broken cotter pin. When I got it home I took off the driver side hubcab and out falls the Nut for the hub, cone washer and the other piece of the cotter pin. Now could this just be the nut was loose and just finally fell off? (Maybe thats where the noise was coming from) Or is the spline worn out? Or something else? Has anyone ever had this happen? Only paid $200 for it and is in good shape. Also had someone watch the axles when I put it in gear, drivers side spinning passenger side was not.

yep, sounds like your cotter pin failed so your axle nut came off, which is known to cause nasty grinding sounds.

 

I've driven on mine grinding for miles without any damage to the bearings, so you might get lucky and only need to put it all back together. When you put the axle nut back on, it needs about 145 ft/lbs of torque.

 

If it still grinds after that, try tightening it again. If that still doesn't help, it could either be the splines on the hub, or the bearings.

you can fix this by replacing the hub that bolts to the rotor, sounds like it stripped the splines. easy to fix so long as the splines on the axle are not stripped. the metal on the axle should be hgarder than the cast iron hub, so you may be in luck