Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

I'm at 135,000 miles and I just ordered new wheel bearing/hub assemblies for both front sides and new rotors/pads for both front sides. I also ordered a 36mm socket to do the hub bearing assy. job with. I spent $350 on this stuff. Gosh. :rolleyes: But, I'd rather be safe at this high mileage than take chances.

Question is....can I reuse the wheel bearing nuts? I know that you aren't technically supposed to...but CAN you? I don't feel like dropping another $50 for two simple nuts.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

Are those the ones torqued to like damned near 300ft lb? I wouldn’t reuse that one personally

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

Yes the torque spec is 250 ft/lbs. I'm still trying to find out if anybody I know has a torque wrench that will go that high. :3b:

I went ahead and picked up two new spindle nuts. O'reilly here in my town had them for $5 each, which is a fraction of what they cost from Ford.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

I was gonna say, I feel like I would remember having to spend $50 each on em!
Luckily we had a 350ft lb torque wrench laying around in the shop at work. I never thought about it - do any of the rent a tool programs have a torque multiplier? If so you could throw one of those on a torque wrench.

Take the assembly to a shop and have them torque it?

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

Well, I do have a 18" breaker bar. And I weigh 230 lbs. So technically I guess I could stand on the end of the breaker bar and it would get me right where I need to be. :laugh: Might have to use some redneck engineering.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

lmao, I guess thats one way to look at it

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

Rented a torque wrench that went high enough from auto parts store.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

I replaced the nuts, I believe I bought them through eBay or Amazon and didn't spend $50 that's for sure. I have a torque wrench that was sufficient for the job but was close to the end of my wrenches limits. Good luck

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

I've reused them on a number of mustang's never a issue. Keep in mind the torque goes so high since the size of the thread. It's not like your torquing a lug nut to 250ftlbs

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

There are a few things that I will not torque or use new hardware when suggested but spindle nuts are absolutely not one of them.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

I've reused them with no problems.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

I guess putting around on the street is fine but I'm not willing to take chances on a race track. Stuff had a way of getting stressed that you would never think of. For example I have broken one wheel completely off the car and cracked 4 others that were all Chinese junk. No more American Muscle Chinese wheels for me.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

Ended up not being a big deal. I just put my 24" breaker bar on it with the 36mm socket and broke them loose pretty easily.

BTW...the nuts on mine were actually not 36mm. The 36mm fits, loosely, but the proper size was a standard, not metric.

I put the new ones back on with the same breaker bar and make the torque feel the same as it felt trying to get the old ones loose. Later on, my father brought his Snap-On 600 ft/lbs heavy equipment torque wrench up to my house and we set it to 250 and double checked my "by feel" setting. :orange:

The new Powerstop Z26 rotors and pads are wicked. Car stops on a dime now.

I will save up money and do the rear this summer.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

Interesting! My front hubs have been on my mind for some time now as well. I’ve got right around 130k on my Mach, maybe I should replace mine as well? Well, it’ll definitely have to be after I find the time to install my rack and pinion that’s been sitting for nearly a month now!

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

My hubs went at around 145,000 miles and a lot of those were track miles. You will know when they need replacing.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the reason I became suspicious is because at the end of last year's car show/cruise season, I was starting to hear a very faint noise from the front end. The noise was only detectible with the radio off and while slowing down from 20 MPH to a stop. So I decided that since it was time to put the car in the barn for winter, I'd look into it when spring rolled around.

Well, here we are and I pulled the front brakes apart and the rotors were slightly warped. Not bad, but just slightly warped. The pads were at about 30%. The wheel bearing on the passenger side had just a small hint of clicking noise in it when I spun it by hand. Had to really try and listen to detect it. There was also a bit of "rough" feel in the bearing while spinning it.

So, it seemed that my bearings and brakes would have lasted one more season if I had really needed them to, but as a preventative measure for safety I went ahead and replaced everything. The noise is now completely gone.

Side note: One thing that really annoys me about Cobra/Mach 1 cars is that the rotors are huge 13" rotors, but the brake pads are so small that 30% of the rotor surface is never used. What a terrible and wasteful design.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

The lack of pad coverage closer to the hub is not that big of a deal as most of the effective brake torque takes place at the perimeter. So the diameter of the rotor makes more difference than the pad coverage. So it's actually a pretty good design as the long pad that covers a lot of the perimeter is more effective than a pad that is shorter but covers the rotor closer to the hub.

Re: Wheel Bearing Nuts?
 

Yep, mechanical leverage. The farther from the hub you mount the caliper, the more braking force you'll get.

But, regardless of rotor size, covering the entire surface with brake pad would still be better than the way they designed it. They give you all that friction surface, but didn't use all of it. :3amin: