"The person" said, "Some information for all of you drag racers. It is a great idea to pull the wheel caps off of the rear wheels and check the torque on the axle nuts. The nuts must be torqued to 118 lbs with a good torque wrench.

I had been checking these every week, but in all of the excitement of attempting to make a 10 second pass, I forgot to check them last week at Maple Grove. Here are some pictures of the results!"

Here's a guy making mutiple 10-11 second drag strip passes, and saying that he checks the torque every week, yet one week he missed checking the torque and the axle breaks -- supposedly due to the axle nut coming loose in that week or two between checking. It is most likely that the axle broke from fatigue. There is nothing to indicate that the axle nut torque had anything to do with this or for you to state "and he is correct." unless you have more information to add. It is no secret that Corvette rear ends aren't OEM built for drag racing and that axle shafts are a weak component.

The inner end of the axle isn't secured with a nut as it needs to move in and out to allow for suspension travel of the rear wheel. Since that end isn't fastened why isn't it also a problem?

People are posting that their wheels are going to fall off, that they need to double nut the axle. Why is it so hard to accept that GM doesn't believe this is a problem?

The car can be safely driven without the nuts. Look at the diagrams and you will see that the axle can't fall out and that the wheels can't fall off. GM techs have said as much but some owners choose to believe the sky is falling instead.

--Dan

 

Thanks for clearing that up....no need for you to bother checking yours then....let us know how that works out for you will ya?

 

The fact of the matter is that nut on, nut off, nut loose, isn't going to cause your wheel to fall off. Look at the diagram I previously posted and stop talking about catastrophic wheel losses.

 

I guess all you guys that think the wheel will fall off are right. I was simply trying to use the correct terminology. And maybe reduce misinformation, too. If you are worried, don't drive the car, and have it towed to the dealer for service.

 

If the car can be driven without the nut, the question that comes to my mind is "Why in the hell put a nut on there and specify a required torque in the first place?"

It seems to me that the fact that it is there and torqued says it should be there for a reason and following that conclusion, it shouldn't be allowed to go loose.

 

I agree that the nuts are there for a purpose -- which I believe is to keep the axle from moving around (in and out) and over a period of time creating excessive wear that can lead to fatique and eventual failure. My point is that the car can be driven without the nuts in place and the wheels won't fall off -- however, that will over time create problems with wear. How much time that would take most likely depends on the type of driving whether street, track, autox, or road race. For most owners, I don't believe it's anything to lose sleep over. My local GM tech agrees.

Going back to the originating post on the Z06 forum -- having less than 118 ft lbs of torque on your axle nuts will not induce immediate axle failure. It is most likely the pursuit of sub 11 second 1/4 mile times and the associated stress placed on the entire driveline.

 

There has to be many many other points of failure in this car. Anyone of of a dozen key fasteners could loosen and create great risk, It's the nature of a machine. This one is easy to periodically check. Those of us who track the car have the wheels off often and can give it an inspection every so often as we have the torque wrench in hand anyway.

Those who drive more sedately probably don't have much to worry about on this particular issue.

..jack

 

Checked my rear axle nuts last night. Drivers side OK. Passenger side a good half turn loose. I torque both nuts to 118 lbs . Thanks for the heads up. Leif

 

Bought the 33MM socket from Autozone. Fit was very good.

Passenger side was perfect, no adjustment needed. Drivers side took about a quarter turn, not bad at all. But spending the $14 seems like a small price to pay to feel more secure about a potential problem.

 

First of all, I'm not saying the wheel will fall off if the nut comes off or even if the axle fails. Also, did you read this:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...5&postcount=35
Understanding the failure analysis is essential to knowing how this can happen. While I know he has more HP and much better traction than most people and how it contributed to the failure to a certain extent, the fact of the matter is the same mechanism can happen at stock levels.

If you look at the pictures of the failure in the thread-
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1544932
you'll see the flange on the CV joint where it mates against the wheel bearing. With a loose axle nut, when torque is transmitted together with the angle of the axle shaft, that flange acts as a lever and imparts bending stresses to the shaft in the area of the shaft failure. As the axle rotates, the bending stresses stay in the same plane seting up the alternating tensile stresses inherent to fatigue failures. A pure torsion failure due to excessive torque would have resulted in a 45 degree spiral failure, not the star shaped pattern seen in the picture. The inner CV joint doesn't have a flange that mates against the differential so it can't experience the same failure mechanism. The outer shaft is "captured" between the nut and the flange. Hope this explains it better. There are also books/courses about failure analysis if you want to read/learn more about types of failures.

 

You dont count. Bad luck is expected in your presence.

 

CV JOINTS???SINCE WHEN DID THE CORVETTE BECOME A FRONT WHEEL DRIVE?

 

A 33MM SOCKET WITH A 1/2 TORQUE WRENCH?

 

I checked my 06 A6 Z51 with 8000 miles, and both rear axil nuts were at least 118 ft-lbs torqued! No loosening at all detected. I used my Craftsman 1/2 torque wrench to check them.

 

Right so next time it needs some major service have em tighten them. "if it aint broken don't fix it"

 

But it has CV joints; they're pretty much required for front wheel drive but are a better solution than U-joints for rear wheel drive.

 

Almost all IRS cars use CV joints. Even my old 74 911S had four CV joints in the rear.

 

Both of mine & my friends were loose. 118 click click!

Thanks for the heads up!

 

Is the 3/4" drive 1 5/16 socket deep well or just standard?

 

Interesting, I thought all car's were metric.