Ok, we found a 91 Justy GL 4 door, with the ecvt and pushbutton 4 wheel drive, for $250. Body is in decent shape, floor is perfect, everything mechanical seems fine. It needs a new strut bearing, but thats it. I tell my freind to buy it. He drives it for about 2 weeks, and then starts to hear a rubbing noise. I have him bring it over, I thought that maybe one of the retaining springs in the rear drum broke. Then I find out that the spindle nut is loose, and has stripped the castleated nut, and the threads on the spindle. I've never seen anything like this before. We couldn't find a replacement 18mm thread x 1.50 thread pitch anywhere. So we rethreaded it to what we could find, a standard 3/4 x 10, we got the new nut to tighten, and then we marked everything, made our own cstellation, and inserted a ne locking pin. We took it for a ride, and it had backed it's way out almost 1/8 a turn, and I could see the wheel was wobbling again. So we re-torqued it to 65ft lbs, and welded it. On the next test drive everything seemed fine, so I had him speed up, and the spindle broke right at the holes for the retaining pins.

 

We are looking for a new rear drive shaft (which nobody seems to be able to order) to replace, since the old one is now ruined. Now the passenger side is was loose to, but we could get the stock spindle nut to tighten back up, and that stayed put.

 

My question is, has anyone ever had a similar problem, and if so how did they fix it? Will replacing the axle, and getting a new spindle nut fix this, or is there something else that could be causing this? I'm a VW mechanic, and these Suby's are new to me. I could really use any input anyone has.

It seems like a great car otherwise, and I'd hate to see my friend out $250 because we can't get this car back on the road.

 

Thanks in advance,

Chris

I know for the legacies those axle nuts need to be torqued to around 100 ft/lbs.

 

I don't have much experience with justy's. I suppose if the wheel bearing is shot, that could cause the problem....that or not torquing things properly.