Before you ask me why I went to midas for any work ever, my answer is a prompt “I had to.” If any of you know where barstow, CA is, my diff blew there(VLSD). I didn’t have tools to do it myself. So I dropped it off with them and stayed at a motel 6, which normally I’m okay with. Here, it’s sketchy. Tonight I noticed my axle nuts have been abused. Any recommendations, besides just getting new axle nuts?


theyve been like this for at least 5k miles and I haven’t noticed anything too weird yet. Thanks guys.


This can be deleted, I'm an idiot.

 

A new pair is about $20 shipped. If you can't swing that my recommendation is to sell the car and buy a bicycle.

 

 

They probably smashed them on there with an impact wrench so... yeah, good luck with that.

 

 

And this, kids, is why we don't let our friends drive around on 1.6 differentials. Swap to a 1.8 diff or suffer the consequences.

 

and next time, buy a set of wrenches at autozone, lay in the parking lot and fix it yourself.


Better yet, buy the AAA premier tow package. 200 mile tow. A DD track car no brainer.

 

I'll be seeing if I can source a 1.8 open sometime in the next couple months. I drive like a grandma right now(and only .25 mile to work) so I'll probably go for ms3x first. I realized I should've done the 1.8 swap myself and first but hindsight 20/20. The drain plug popped out of the diff halfway to cali and it blew. @ryan continuously learning from my mistakes but thats my plan next time. Also definitely going to look into AAA, USAA kinda sucks.

 

Silver lining: If they hadn't smashed them on there, they would have come loose by now. Torque spec is something like 200ft.lbs on those IIRC, and if you don't stake them to the axle, they can easily come loose.

 

I'll have a full 1.8 open (155k miles) that I'll be trying to sell within a month or so. I'm swapping in a T2 3.63 rear so yea. I'm in San Bernardino.

 

That just looks like they reused the old ones. Which seem to be in fine shape. And they certainly out them on there good. Re-stake the edge back in and run it. I wouldn't worry. They are heavy duty nuts and I have re-used plenty of much rustier ones that the skirt thing had completely rusted away on (put a sharpy mark to keep an eye on it and it was fine).

 

okay sure thing, ill try that and watch them and see if they back out any. i've never been to our "auto hobby shop" here at nellis but if i have to i can probably get some new ones and get them torqued to the specs they need there.