Wheel bearing lock nuts

[Tilman]

Hey everybody,

we need to know how the pretension of the wheel bearings could be realized for wheel bearings with an inner diameter of 75mm.
We only know the possibility to use 2 lock nuts with a lock washer.
But I think this is not the best construction as there are many tems that only use one nut. However, we do not know how to secure this single nut and we did not ask other teams at Silverstone/Hockenheim in 2008.
Perhaps you got some ideas or hints for me how to do this with one nut and how to properly secure this one.

thanks a lot
Tilman

[Drew Price]

Tilman,

If you are talking about 'split-lock' washers, please please don't use them for anything, they don't actually lock.



Usually tapered roller wheel bearing assemblies are pre-tensioned (crushed, torqued, whatever you want to call it) with a castellated nut, with a cotter pin or a hitch pin to keep them from loosening, sort of like this one below.

You have to have the holes drilled in the end of the spindle though, and they have to be in the right place along the length of the spindle for the pin to go through. Usually there are 2 holes drilled through the end of the spindle perpendicular to each other, so with the 6 slots in the nut you will only ever have to torque the nut an additional 1/12th of a turn for the spaces to line up.

http://www.4x4xplor.com/images/steering-stabilizer/steeringshock02.jpg

http://www.nagca.com/grandtech/Tech%20Photos/wheelbear0005.JPG


Many OEM spindles have a slot cut in the end of the spindle, and a special nut that gets bent into the slot to keep it from loosening, but the nuts must (should) be replaced whenever they are removed.

http://www.the-mod-squad.org/images/Wheel%20Bearing/CIMG1301.JPG



Lastly, sometimes you can make or buy some sort of special safety tab washers, like these, the notch lines up with a slot in the spindle like with the one-time-use-nuts above, and you torque the nuts down, and fold the little tabs up over the hex portion of the nut to lock it in place. I have made my own locking collars like these for our threaded steering arm ends and one or two other things from sheet metal, they have worked fine, but check the often.

If used on a spindle it has to have the little tab to keep the washer from rotating to have the locking effect.

http://www.wabfab.org/products/frontaxle/nut-kit-600.jpg

http://faq.f650.com/FAQs/Photos/ChainPhotos/ChainCSSprocketNut.jpg



You might also look up 'propeller' nuts, same idea, the tabs are on the flange of the nut though.

There are certainly other methods too, these are some of the more common ones though.

I was able to find the castellated nuts at our local hardware store, they were a few dollars each, and had the metric thread I needed, so we used those.

Best,
Drew

[jrickert]

We used a cotter pinned castle nut.I usually just torque the nut until the point where the wheel drag just starts to increase and pin the castle nut in place there. Never had a wheel bearing related problem.

[C.Zinke]

Here is an old thread:

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/t...10056341#23110056341 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/54710192341?r=23110056341#23110056341)

Some of our website's pictures also show how we did it.

Christopher