Tightening Lock Nuts on Wheel Bearings

[TJR]

OK. I'm not sure why tightening the inner nut to set the wheel bearings needs an exact torque setting. I just put a socket on the nut with a ratchet wrench & tighten as much as is easily comfortable. Give the wheel a turn to verify that the bearings are properly set in the races, verify tightness, then back the nut off 1-1/2 flats (for aftermarket nuts & sometimes as much as 2 flats for genuine nuts).

I assumed that people new to this procedure were reading their manual and following the steps until they came to the part that said to set up a dial indicator. The manual says to spin the hub.

ALWAYS read and follow the manual step by step for any procedure that you do not know by heart. The Land Rover owner's manual does a very good job of stepping you through the procedures called out in the recommended maintenance schedule. The Factory workshop manual does a mostly very good job of stepping you through all the other operations. I recommend following the manual step by step if you want to do a proper job with best results. The only time to do a web search on how to do a procedure is when you don't quite understand how to do a step and are looking for a different explanation that is more clear to you.

For setting up hubs, the only place I have suggested straying from the manual is for people who do not have, and likely do not know how to properly use, a dial indicator. The method I use, Backing off 1-1/2 to 2 flats, came down to me from a professional Series Land Rover mechanic about 30 years ago and has served me well the many times I have R&R'ed the hubs over the decades. I'm just sharing what I was taught and have been successfully using. If you have a dial indicator and know how to use it, by all means use one & get the end float within spec. For those who do not have a dial indicator and don't know how to use one, I'm just suggesting a rule of thumb that decades of experience by multiple people have shown it to be close enough for high mileage use without failure.

Take it of leave it. Since it is not my truck it doesn't matter a whole lot to me.

I think all of the above is solid advice.

The Dana 44 ford method I mentioned earlier is a pretty good method for me. Easy to do and has never let me down.

for what it's worth.. I just checked the Dana 44 wheel brg lock nuts against the LR ones. They are both 16 thread per inch. In fact the Dana 44 nuts screw right onto the LR spindle.. I never knew that.

Backing off two flats is 120 degrees, 90 dregees is 1-1/2 flat...
so what the difference in 30 degrees when 1 turn is .0625" = .0625 * 30/360 = apprx .0052"

I don't know about the 60 degree vs 55 though. In my opinion.. It would be nice to use the dana 44 style lock nuts and washer and loose the bent tab lock washer.

[bkreutz]

I've been following this thread and found it interesting. When I started as a mechanic at the local Land Rover dealership in 1967 the method one of the "old timers" taught me was tighten with a breaker bar (tight) then loosen, retighten by hand on the socket, then back off 1 flat and put the lock tab and outer nut on. I've used this same method over the years on various makes with the same full floating bearing setup. I've seen various tech instructions printed over the years on how to do it. The last place I worked before retiring was at a Lexus dealer, so just for grins, I followed their complicated method on a LX470 front end, checked the torque on the nut after retightening it to the specified torque, then redid it using the "old" method, and it came out to exactly the same torque. I had to laugh, seems like I was doing it correctly for 40 years.