Front wheel hub torque specs?

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Matthew Jeschke

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I bought a Chilton manual only to see they don't spec the toque. I looked on Timken website to discover the same. I am now googling but getting mixed specs.

I believe the axle nut is 177ft/lbs.

However what are the 3 hub assembly bolt's toque specs? I see 75 ft/lbs in one place and 133 ft/lbs in another ?
 
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Matthew Jeschke

Matthew Jeschke

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Answered my own question. Mounting bolts 133 ft lbs, axle nut 177 ft lbs. Seems they put torque specs at end of chapter and not in text with instructions :/
 

Larryjb

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Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I found another discrepancy in the axle nut torque spec.

The 2002 GM Service manual says 155 ft-lbs.
All other resources say 177 ft-lbs.
Honestly, the 155 seemed low to me so I went with the 177 ft-lbs, but I've seen this discrepancy on the fixya site.

Now I'm wondering, does 177 ft-lbs slightly overload the bearing causing it to fail a couple of years early so the shops can make more money replacing bearings? That said, I torqued it to 177 ft-lbs. But torquing the hub-knuckle bolts to 133 ft-lbs was difficult. The axle is in the way, and the upper ball joint is in the way of the upper ball joint stud. I think the only way I could have reliably torqued them would have been to separate the tie rod end and the upper ball joint.
 

swathdiver

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Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I found another discrepancy in the axle nut torque spec.

The 2002 GM Service manual says 155 ft-lbs.
All other resources say 177 ft-lbs.
Honestly, the 155 seemed low to me so I went with the 177 ft-lbs, but I've seen this discrepancy on the fixya site.

Now I'm wondering, does 177 ft-lbs slightly overload the bearing causing it to fail a couple of years early so the shops can make more money replacing bearings? That said, I torqued it to 177 ft-lbs. But torquing the hub-knuckle bolts to 133 ft-lbs was difficult. The axle is in the way, and the upper ball joint is in the way of the upper ball joint stud. I think the only way I could have reliably torqued them would have been to separate the tie rod end and the upper ball joint.

I've read from guys on here who didn't torque it enough and had to replace them within a year.

The hub bolts and spindle nuts are supposed to be one time use only too.

One of my Timken hubs failed at 70K miles. I proactively replaced the other at 84K while doing some other work the other day. Now we'll see how long the GM OE hubs last again.
 

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