Hi guys,

I'm at desperation stage here. Changed bearings on the car. Ball joints also changed.

The threads on my TREs were goosed from getting the busy off, so I bought new ones to replace them.

My issue is the jam nuts. I have watched/read pretty much everything that's out there, yet these things won't budge.

Tried heat, spray etc.

Is it definitely clockwise for both to loosen them off you are looking at the hub from the outside of the wheel arch?

Lefty loosey when looking from the inside of the wheel.

Drivers side loosen by turning towards the front of the car and passenger side turn toward the rear of the car.

I can't really get much purchase on them as the wheel arch is in the way. Zero progress so far.

Any ideas?

I have considered replacing the inner rods too, although it will be a full car rebuild at this rate!

Edited Sunday at 08:333 days by joeninho

Always anti or counter clockwise to slacken things - except for when your dealing with left handed threads - which you are not here.

Any progress today?

Hotter heat and longer levers is about all I can suggest.

Except...

Which bit are you holding still and which bit are you trying to shift?

Leaving the lock nut stuck where it is, and attempting to unscrew the TRE off it may be easier than trying to move the lock nut inward along the track rod?

Not had a chance to give it a good go yet, Pete, as we've been out today.

About to have another go shortly.

Still not entirely sure I'm turning it the right way, even though I thought my logic above was sound!

Good suggestion about turning the TRE, I'll give that a try.

Your logic was correct.

Easier to get it right if holding track rod and lock nut still while unscrewing TRE, cos then it is anticlockwise as viewed from where you are. (Assuming outboard of everything is where you are).

If you held the track rod by the flats on it, while trying to shift the nut inwards along it, you would see that as clockwise if sitting outboard of everything.

Edited Sunday at 17:083 days by Breezy_Pete

8 hours ago, joeninho said:

I can't really get much purchase on them as the wheel arch is in the way. Zero progress so far.

Any ideas?

Turn the steering wheel full lock, so that the TRE is outside the wheel arch.

Use a long spanner and gently tap the other end with a mallet.

HTH.

Thanks. AG Falco

Ideally you'd want these track rod ends back bolted up to the hub knuckle s doing that helps stabilise this while you fight with the locking nut - but I think that you have said that you have damaged the thread on the TRE taper/post - is there not enough useable thread there to relocate it even using washers as packing so that you can get it nipped up?

Maybe this is where these "bovine" spanner extenders come into play, I gambled on buy a single one to see if they work okay, all my spanners are what you could call "good quality" so no danger of something nasty happening if I snap one using this "bovine" addition to my tool kit.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they can be very useful especially when needing to deal with bigger "torque to yield" fixings that you can only access with a hex ring spanner!

Well, Chaps... I celebrated a hollow victory tonight...

I was busy high fiving myself after managing to crack both jam nuts and install the new TREs. Got everything reassembled.

Drove the car and it lit up like a Christmas tree.

Things to note:

Battery has been flat for a week. Dead. Started with jump starter gizmo, which started car right away. When you turn it off, it's stone dead again. Currently charging on repair mode. Apparently, the power steering pump can fail to engage if the battery is low.

Forgot to tighten master cylinder cap when I got on the move. Balls up on my part.

Three lights on. ABS, Power Steering, Brake Light/Fluid (Flashing Red). 3 beeps for good measure. Fluid level is fine.

Ancel threw up front right speed sensor code.

Torture!

ABS wheel speed sensor getting damaged - not unexpected when replacing the wheel hub/bearing assembly. Slightly curious to me, that it was the RHS one as that was the one that I trashed when replacing both hub/bearings - but I had already spotted that the "finger" of that ABS wheel sensor was canted over after I had got that bearing out.

So, now you "just" unplug and unbolt that wheel sensor - and then probably fail to to be able to pull it out - then end up snapping it off! Not a problem, just drill down into the remains and take a "red hot" MDF type screw (ie a screw with big grippy threads" - and push that down into the hole that you drilled, then give that screw a full 1 > 2 complete turns, then cool that area down so that the plastic hardens back up, then yank that screw+sensor up and out of that hole in the knuckle. You should be luckier than I was with my 2011 Audi S4 as it has aluminium uprights/knuckles and your car has iron knuckles so the crap that is locking that sensor in its location is a lot less nasty than the really crap crap that is aluminium salts! Clean the sensor hole out with a 10mm drill bit - that should give you enough room to push the new sensor down into its location, maybe apply some high temperature wheel bearing grease to the "upper" end of the new sensor to make life easier for the next time/person!

Or the bearing didn't go quite fully in on that side.

@joeninho is the problem on the first side you did?

Thanks guys,

Appreciate the input. The sensors are both new.

rum4mo, I took your advice on your earlier thread and bought new sensors in advance of the bearing job.

I have to say though, due to the hole in the hub being a bit corroded, I am not sure it went fully in. It was a struggle to tighten the Allen key to seat it properly. In fact, I think I left a little gap as I didn't want to risk breaking the new sensor.

Also, I carefully scraped around inside the sensor hole with a pick tool and small screwdriver with the new bearing installed, so not sure if I may have scraped/damaged the tone ring, or if I just need to take it out and try some precision cleaning to ensure it's seated properly.

The issue is with the bearing that I installed second, Pete.

Need to get better at cleaning up corroded parts and realising that some parts need precision fitting. Like these bloody sensors!

Every day is a learning day.

I've read on these forums that you can't even give these ABS magnetic rings a sideways glance without causing them damage - but now that you have been able to actually see a bearing with hopefully a magnetic ring on its inner face - you've probably worked out that usually they are able to look after themselves okay.

If you feel the need to clean these wheel sensor bores up a bit better, what I'd do - and I did when working on both my wife's Polo and my S4, was to record the depth that should be safe for you to run a 10mm drill down - remember that these sensors are only "full size" for part of their length, follow any reaming with the drill bit with maybe brake cleaner to wash the crap out and away while rotating the hub.

Just hopefully a worthless question - did you make sure that both hub-bearing assemblies had ABS sensor magnetic rings on the inner face of these bearings - maybe not too easy to spot? Maybe even confirm this by checking the actual part numbers from their packaging.

Now if you had access to a "good" VAG compliant scan tool, you could "watch" each wheel's road speed - to see if it was correct and consistent.

Edit:- actually seeing as you know it is the front right hand side ABS sensor, you must have a scan tool, sorry for making that error.

Edited Tuesday at 20:141 day by rum4mo