Reply to "Axle Nut Socket"

Part #17; part #12 is the hardened load-spreading spacer that touches the flange & outside bearing. The #17 washer has a flat side and a conical side; many of us put the flat side against the tapered cut in the splined axle adapter (#16), to cause the washer to flex and act as a belleville-spring, further locking the axle nut. There are no known factory directions for any of this & both washer positions work.

If you decide to order new nuts ($16 ea), there are some different ones that have been used over the years. One OEM is a lightweight half-height nut that has little for a wrench to grab and after a few uses may so round off the notches that you can't torque it using a factory wrench with tab ends. It is not split. The second OEM nut is a full-height split style and withstands reuse better. And some vendors have repopped the nuts in a better grade of steel- usually, the split full-height style. So what you get may look different. As Julian said, the full-height type are horizontally saw-cut 1/3 of the way around so the top twists under final torque, locking the nut. Untightening may, or may not untwist it to the original point. Make a note of the run-in torque when starting to tighten a used nut, and ADD that to the 300 minimum ft-lbs needed: if run-in takes 30 ft-lbs, tighten to 330 ft-lbs minimum. Higher is better; lower is flirting with disaster and guessing is even worse.

Before assembling an upright, hang the stub axle from a wire and smack the flange with a steel hammer. If the axle is cracked, it will sound dull; a good axle will ring like a bell. The crack will ALWAYS be in the chamferred area where the shaft and flange meet, and may not be visible. I once weld-repaired a worn axle, and had the hidden crack snap in two in the driveway as the car was being rolled out for a test drive. I've found cars with rewelded flanges..... scary!

Finally, p/n 14 is a mild steel spacer that often gets chewed up on one end or the other. Some shops lathe-cut or dress the spacer ends flat. I don't bother. The inner bearing is located by the spacer, not by a step in the upright bore, so it moves in or out during torquing. But at some point, a dressed-flat spacer will be shortened enough that the splined outer adapter (#16) will bottom on the stub-axle splines (#11) that are tapered in depth on the part furthest away from the nut, before compressing the spacer. Bad things then occur and you get to do this all over again.

For those that want to play around in here, the Gr-3 used optional 10" wide Campys & 295-50 tires, and to counteract the expected extra traction from big tires, there was a double-row inner ball bearing used. This bearing was the same OD as the stock single-row bearing & drops in. To compensate for the extra bearing width, the steel spacer was shortened the exact same amount. With GT-5 and -5S cars and their 12" wide Campys, the inner bearing was again widened and changed to a straight roller (NOT tapered) bearing. The spacer used here was about 1/2 the length of stock. This non-tapered roller bearing is NOT a drop-in; it's the same OD as the front ball bearing so it requires a remachined upright- stock on the wide-bodies. Note that with proper bearing press-fit and non-pro-race use, NONE of these optional wheel bearings are needed with giant tires.