Drive shaft nut

[A500leroy]

Ok, I've not had the wheel off yet to look but read the guidance in the manual and it says to undo the driveshaft hub nut first you have to release the stalking.

What on earth is stalking, I've never heard of anything described as such.

[TwinKam]

Staking. No 'L'.
Where a soft portion of the nut collar is driven (or 'staked') into a groove in the shaft, to lock it.
Sometimes they will 'unstake' themselves as you undo them, sometimes the collar tears, sometimes you can get a fine chisel in the groove to 'un-stake' it. In any case, renew the nut, once-only use.

[A500leroy]

Cheers fella, I look forward to trying this

[Arnold Cunningham]

And be prepared for the nut to be FT. I have a 3/4” extra long breaker bar that usually gets called in to action for the driveshaft nut. After I bent my 1/2” one.

[InitialDave]

A narrow chisel ground to size is my preferred tool for removing the staking.

Before you start, check you have an appropriate socket. Some manufacturers use 12pt nuts, in which case a 6pt socket won't do you much good.

[A500leroy]

Maybe I need to buy an impact wrench

[InitialDave]

A500leroy said:

Maybe I need to buy an impact wrench

If you're looking for an excuse to man-maths your way into one, sure, but a big breaker bar and some muscle almost always works.

The trick is to put the wheel back on with the centre cap removed and lower the weight of the car back onto it, then undo the nut. I did once have one so tight that the necessary torque just skidded the tyre on the driveway, but the addition of a wedge for the tyre to bite in to resolved that.

[Richard-D]

Be aware some cars are left-handed thread on one side whilst others are right handed thread on both.

[E-bmw]

A500leroy said:

Maybe I need to buy an impact wrench

An impact wrench is extremely unlikely to undo a driveshaft nut.

Best way is generally recruit a passenger to stand on the brake pedal and use the best socket/bar combination you can get your hands on as they are FT.

[normalbloke]

E-bmw said:

A500leroy said:

Maybe I need to buy an impact wrench

An impact wrench is extremely unlikely to undo a driveshaft nut.

Best way is generally recruit a passenger to stand on the brake pedal and use the best socket/bar combination you can get your hands on as they are FT.

I disagree…

[InitialDave]

A half decent impact gun will be fine on a driveshaft nut unless it's really bad.

[A500leroy]

Sod it, ordered one .

[normalbloke]

A500leroy said:

Sod it, ordered one .

You can’t leave it at that, we need more details man!

[Arnold Cunningham]

And then we can take the mick if it doesn’t have enough ugga duggas.

[A500leroy]

Arnold Cunningham said:

And then we can take the mick if it doesn’t have enough ugga duggas.

Silver line 400 corded.

[InitialDave]

A500leroy said:

Silver line 400 corded.

Hmm.

That looks like it's 350Nm/260lb.ft

I'm dubious, but see how you get on.

[Jakg]

E-bmw said:

An impact wrench is extremely unlikely to undo a driveshaft nut.

Maybe I've been lucky then...

Staked nut:


I'd be less concerned how you undo it and more about how you do the it up tight enough:

• tighten with a torque wrench (but usually you need a very big one)
• tighten up very-FT and hope that's enough
• re-use the nut, tighten until staking lines up (rough!)

[A500leroy]

Jakg said:

E-bmw said:

An impact wrench is extremely unlikely to undo a driveshaft nut.

Maybe I've been lucky then...

Staked nut:


I'd be less concerned how you undo it and more about how you do the it up tight enough:

• tighten with a torque wrench (but usually you need a very big one)
• tighten up very-FT and hope that's enough
• re-use the nut, tighten until staking lines up (rough!)

Thanks for the pic fella
I've brought new nuts.

[GreenV8S]

Jakg said:

I'd be less concerned how you undo it and more about how you do the it up tight enough:

• tighten with a torque wrench (but usually you need a very big one)
• tighten up very-FT and hope that's enough
• re-use the nut, tighten until staking lines up (rough!)

My approach for high torque fasteners is to work out how much leverage it needs for my weight to produce the right torque, and then hang off the bar at the right distance. This works out much cheaper than buying 'koff big torque wrenches.

[Arnold Cunningham]

On my old Audi it was a 16mm fine thread bolt. 190Nm IIRC, plus 180 degrees. Getting the 190Nm was easy enough, but the full 180 degrees extra was when I bent my 1/2 breaker bar - since I needed a good bit of scaffold bar on the end to torque it up. In fairness, a conventional nut will be a whole lot easier and in my comments above I was thinking about the Audi since that's the last driveshaft I did. More conventional driveshaft nut will be a lot easier.