I thought no greasy on the center lock system guts? Just the bolt and mating surface?

 

Wrong, when u drop it on the ground and falls apart there are spots that need to be greased there....not as often thou

 

large thin washer/gasket doesn't get grease but everything else does and on the inside of the cone there are 3 holes that get packed 3/4 with grease.

 

I was referring to the mechanism inside the hub, not the bolt.

 

Inside the hub...no grease

 

Had it happen a couple of times too. Always on the rears. My hunch is that even with the right torque the thing (CL nut) somethings moves a and makes the locking spline do its locking. Maybe because of the heat? Hard to tell.

Talked to a mechanic about it and he said it was not really a problem. As long as the nut doesn't actually come loose there is nothing to worry about. Another reason to always check the locking splines when mounting the wheels.

 

Thanks RL! I just had my first experience with this issue. A couple of light taps...remedied. I'll clean them next time off.

 

Got sick of the constant binding issue, always at the right rear, only at the track. Got a tape and marked the relative positions of the nut and the wheel. This is how much it moved to bind up the spine, likely exactly the degree of movement allowed in the spine locking system. I will take it to dealer to see if they would replace the hub under warranty (I am not too hopeful). If not, I will order parts from Sunset Oregon and have local dealer put a new one in the right rear, just for peace of mind, esp with all the reported failures in the right rear! Apparently not everyone has the issue, and I don't like the fact that the failproof system is fail proving all the time on the track. What if the spine fails? I have to tap the spine very hard to loosen it every time, indicating that it was working very hard to stop the center lock from further loosening. Two different torque wrenches to check the torques and always greased and following the proper procedures (tires off ground, etc). I did prevent the binding once, but with much higher torque than the recommended 444 ft-lb (close more slightly more than 500 ft-lb; with 10-15 ft-lb increments after each session), and I was not comfortable with it, esp not knowing what caused the reported failures--over torqued nut or spine failure.

 

The hubs are wear items at this point my guess. I wonder how high you need to torque them before they fail ? Over torque probably just adding to a existing problem.

 

Great pics! Confirms what I've been talking about all along. There's a bunch who think the CL nut cannot move its splines engaged and here's your wake up call.

Replace your hubs like liurad when you start losing torque. I wouldn't gamble at this point.

 

Though one should not have to put tape on their hub and guess if the hub needs to be replaced. Two dealers I have asked have offered no documentation on when a hub actually needs to be replaced.

I would be interested if this hub still passes the torque test on removal, if so than that may not even be a valid test to indicate you have the condition outlined here. Given all the docs and information, we maybe still just guessing that the hub here needs to be replaced (if I were the owner I would replace it but having the indicator be that the spline is hard to push in is not a good nor a documented indication of hub replacement time).

A clear failure of the system is that one has a "wear" part that is not clear when it is worn. In fact this slippage may refute he claim that folks doing the correct maintenance are effectively shielded from hub failure (till ???).

 

Maybe I am an idiot, but there is something I do not understand here.
We are looking at a picture of your center lock system after track use, where the nut moved. I suppose you put on tape after tightening the nut, then cut the tape in 2 parts, did your thing on track and discovered what we see in the above picture, right?

Now, these center locks are tightened in a normal fashion, clock wise. If the nut were to come loose when driving (as suggested in the above post) the piece of tape on the nut should be lower than the piece of tape on the wheel in stead of higher (since to loosen the nut should turn counter-clockwise). So what happened here is that the nut actually got tighter in stead of loose.

Unless of course the image we are looking at has been mirrored.

 

good point...it looks like the nut actually tightens it's self further...higher torque...or maybe rotational forces cause the nut to stay put and it's the wheel that actually moved under hard braking?...I'm confused too.

 

Excellent point irfuel! That photo would suggest it did tighten....

 

Wheel can't move relative to the hub mike as its held by the drive pins... maybe 0.5mm or something but not as much as is shown in that photo... I think...