So while checking rear axle nuts on my 06 I found one not really tight maybe 100 ft lb? The other side was really tight but ordered new nuts and when trying to break tight side loose was able to rotate shaft with a clicking noise ? This is an a6 is this ok?

 

Break the nuts loose before jacking car. Center cap comes off and socket will fit in there.

Possible broken half shaft spline at the hub bearing. Read up on it.
Old TSB to replace axle nuts had dealers tightening new ones down to 160 ft lb.
That high of a torque on old axles is presumed to cause them to stretch and fail not long after nut replacement. Both mine broke.

If broken, I suggest:

• replace with C5 axle. supposed to be more durable. That's what I did.
• replace shaft seal whether it was leaking before or not. Mine leaked after new shaft installed. had to re-do.
• Not sure of these torques.....but if nut on new axle 140 ft lb, nut on existing axle 120 ft lb. Use loctite and let sit overnight before driving.

 

Use the old nuts as lock nuts, they will fit under the center cap

 

^ yeah don't do this, no point. Just torque it once and be done with it.

 

I agree with farminton. There is a point to this. The factory torqued them once and how'd that go? With loctite you can't re-check torque.
install new nuts and use old ones to double nut. Been running like this for 5 years

 

Thanks for the replies will replace with red loctite and tourqe

 

people will disagree, but I also double nut and have had great success (track regularly). On several different cars. Never looked back.
As a matter of interest, red loctite is rated till 450f. I'm not sure, but since I do track the car, that may be approaching the temperature threshold.

 

Here's the thing - myself and thousands of other vettes out there are running 1 single axle nut, and are perfectly fine with zero issues at all. So if people are having issues where they need a second axle nut on there, clearly there's another issue and the second nut is a bandaid to a bigger problem. Now if it's just paranoia, and people want to run 2 if it helps people sleep better at night then I suppose that's on them 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

Paranoia! …in my case anyway.

long ago I road raced an MR2 and had a series of wheel bearing failures and/or axles snapping under the nuts.
Moreover, this often also destroyed the knuckle as the outer bearing race was press fitted.

After several failures, I kept checking the tq on the axle nuts.
often they were loose. So, I increased the TQ spec, eventually to almost double the factory spec based on the axle diameter mostly. But once there’s any play, the slight movement was enough to trash the bearing as well as the knuckle into which it was pressed.

I figured the bearing would have to survive the higher tq. What else could I do?
Problems stopped.

4 yrs later there was a service bulletin saying the service manual is incorrect and TQ should be 234lbs, not 134 and to use loctite.

Anyhow, once while changing my upright at the track (I had to carry spares with bearings already pressed in), a Cobra guy came over and said he’d been having similar issues, but now double nuts axles because his loctite baked out.

Decades later I had forgotten all about all this until I got my Z06 and saw GM had a TSB re axle tq. Sure enough, one was snug at the original low TQ value, but the other side broke free at what may have only been 100ft lbs.
I undid both, cleaned off the threads on both the axles and nuts (dremel) and installed them to the revised spec.
And because of paranoia, I double nutted.

Sure, the vast majority don’t double nut, and probably don’t track their cars either.
And it’s likely unnecessary, but it’s cheap insurance and ‘once bitten twice shy’ 🙂

 

PS my wife has a mint 88 MR2 SC and the axle nuts have never loosened or even been off. Original wheel bearings at 181k