I own a 1994 Subaru. About 5 years ago I needed new front brakes (pads and rotors)…I didn’t have the time to do it myself so I took it down to the local Midas shop.
Fast forward to today…new front brakes needed again. So I decided this time to replace them myself. On the right axle, the hub was a real bear getting off (over 2 hours banging with a small sledge while applying heat and penetrant). When the hub/rotor combo finally came off I noticed why(splines were stripped pretty badly)…someone (presumably Midas) had loctited the hub to the axle. They never said a word to me at the time but I recall they had some trouble replacing brakes on one side. You think they would have at least told me about the stripped hub at the time. Thankfully the loctite held all these years, but now I’m doing it the right way and buying a new hub (if I can find one). Lesson…ask many questions, but they still may not tell you the truth…or better yet, do the work yourself (if you have the time, tools, and knowledge)!
Remove Splined Hub To Replace Brakes? Loctite “Gluing” Stripped Hub Onto The Axle For Five Years?
CSA
I can’t picture this operation. The locktite was put on te splines the hub fits on? the splines were stripped or the threads at the end of the CV shaft were damaged. What exactly is a stripped hub? what are stripped splines?
I can picture what happens when the big nut holding the older VW drums on comes loose,the hard splines rock back and forth on the soft drum material and eventualy you have no surface in the drum that coorespondes to the splines on the axel,so I can picture damaged splines in this way.
As I recall, the hub is held on the CV axle stub by a big nut THAT COMPRESSES A SPLIT, TAPERED, WASHER… After removing the axle nut, AND GIVING THE SPLIT WASHER A COUPLE OF TAPS WITH A HAMMER TO RELEASE IT, the hub/rotor just slip off…
Did you remove that split cone washer Caddyman references before attempting to remove the hub/rotor? If not, that could very well be the reason for all of the difficulty because removing the hub/rotor with the cone washer in place can be a nightmare. And Subaru hubs have a very tight fit anyway. This is why Subaru has special factory tools for removal and installation of the halfshafts.
If the splines were stripped it’s unlikely that Midas had anything to do with it.
Stripped splines are usually caused by someone failing to properly tighten the axle shaft nut; and on a Subaru this mean godawful tight.
Maybe this was a pre-existing condition? I’m not defending Midas on this as they should have pointed it out and have no idea why someone would use Loc Tite or anything else on the splines.
In defense of Midas, I had the opposite experience.
Last year it was 15 below and on the way to work all of a sudden all my lights went on and I lost power steering. Pulled off the freeway and took a look. Serpentine belt came off. Brrrr, put it on and started car and off it came again. Hmmm, seen this before, water pump bearing shot allowing belt to come off. So I headed to the next exit looking for nearest shop to limp to and there was a Midas. Took a cab the rest of the way to work and they had the pump done no problem by the end of the day. Only issues were they naturally wanted to flush the system and put a new belt on but I did that myself. They did lock my keys in the car but they had to open it again in sub zero temps. All in all the work and the $250 price was just fine.