Im a little confused by that post cheese. You dont really need a torque wrench to do this. If the cotter pin lines up and you have the nut on tight, odds are it's on right. I just did my front driver side without a torque wrench with no problems, and I did my rear over a year ago with no problems. If he's pushed a castle nut past the point where it's rotation is stopped by the cotter pin, that's another story entirely.

 

Generally if its not torque wrenched its too loose, That .001" of play actually is enough to cause your bearings to crap themselves. Some cars require castle nuts to be torqued with a specific sequence too lets say 60lb's back off 1 full rotation then 220lbs like a malibu or some crap I was working on the other day. They need to seat perfectly because that axle is ment to have a certain tension. failure to clean thread's also causes frequent failure. I havent changed my tiburons bearing's and im far too lasy to look it up so ??? but thats one of the few suspension components where tighten to 3 grunts isnt good enough.

 

Well keep in mind I purchased 3' and 4' lengths of pipe for breaker bars for this project. smile.gif What I found is that there isn't much room to play with on the tib once you have that cotter pin in. I'm really not sure how you could make it any different with a torque wrench, but I could be wrong. I guess we'll see if the two I've replaced go bad on me. smile.gif

 

Well Caj I was gonna blame it on the same thing but since I'm a noob here I thought I wouldn't antagonize anyone on my first day wink1.gif

 

Would it help to put a thicker spacer between the nut and bearing to bring the castle nut closer to the cotter pin holes?

 

Well if you are able to spin the castle nut down beyond the cotter pin hole there is something wrong with your hub or axle. That would be why you are eating throught them bearings. Maybe one of the times you had the bearings pressed in they bent the hub(not likely, but possible) or after a ton of miles your axle has deformed some how.

 

Also, here's a thought: Do you still have the lock washer with the hub nut?

 

First thing that pops into my head is the large fat lock washer behind the nut is gone. That would be about the right space to allow the nut to tighten down away from the cotterpin.

As for the Torque wrench part. . . I don't own one. DAd's got one we used on head bolts, rod and main bolts. Otherwise, um-tight is about right. If you know what you're doing you won't need it.

I see Caj beat me to it. . . gotta work and all.

 

The washer is there as is should be. I am working on a different area of the car while I await parts for the transmission. Once I get back to the bearings I'll update everyone on what I found out. As I said earlier, I went and bought a press so I will give it a shot installing them this time. Granted I haven't ever pressed in a front wheel drive wheel bearing before but I give it a go anyway...can't be much worse than electric motor shaft bearings.

 

Check your spindle and axle. If there's any sign of wear, replace it. All I can think of right off the bat is that at some point, the axle has been pulled too far into the spindle. But even that doesn't make any sense, because the spindle isn't soft enough for that to happen....

Is there some kind of spacer that goes behind the spindle, between it and the shaft? Since you know you have the lock washer that goes between the bearing and the nut, make sure there's nothing that's supposed to go behind the spindle that could possibly cause the difference in length.

Also, are you absolutely sure you're getting the right part? Check the build date inside the door panel and confirm with the parts person that you're getting the right bearing.

*Tell me more about this transmission work you're doing. Could that be a factor in your problem? thinking.gif