2020 Honda Accord. I’m now realizing that the lower ball joints use self locking clinch nuts. Have never heard of clinch nuts before. Anyways the service information says to replace them. This is with regards to the lower three nuts that goes onto the studs, as opposed to castle nut that goes on top under the cv axle. See lots of people on youtube doing repairs which requires removing these nuts, and they go ahead and use the same old rusty nuts right back on.
Looking online at this type of self locking technology. It is mostly used in sheet metal. A hole is drilled into the sheet metal, and there is sort of teeth at the bottom of the nut, that grips into the metal. This prevents it from coming loose due to vibrations with time. In the case of the three lower ball joint studs though, I don’t believe there is this type of setup. Nylon locking nuts would make sense to me for this lower ball joint application, if there was the need to make them self locking.
Looking online at aftermarket lower ball joints for this car, they all appear to be regular nuts without any self locking technology. For example in the one below, it looks like the teeth are in the actual stud (not the nut) which makes more sense to me, in terms of the stud going through the hole, and the teeth having some to bite onto. Not exactly sure what the teeth of the nut would bite onto exactly.
Not sure. Are those nuts “clinch” nuts in your photo? Sorry if I misunderstood you? It’s ok for me to just re-use the clinch nuts the came with the ball joint (old ones and not brand new ones).
I don’t have new ones. I was just pointing out that the aftermarket ones (which I don’t have) appear to just be regular nuts without any type of self locking mechanics. Do you think I’m ok to just use the old ones, since the “clinching” won’t be doing anything in this application?
I’m not going to comment on what’s right or wrong, but I will say mechanics have been known to use a dab of Loctite on threads if they don’t have a replacement “one time use” nut on hand.
Thanks. I will get the blue stuff. If I’m understanding correctly, even with the loctite, I should torque to the same spec that the service information says to?
An alternative, an Advance Auto nears me has the lower ball joint. I might just get one, and use the three nuts from it. It looks like they are true self locking nuts, and have a nylon locking ring. Most part stores don’t seem to carry the part, but I found one that did.
Then I don’t have to worry about thread locker, or torque values.
And I could say I did the job properly and actually replaced the nuts. Given they are different nuts, and not the OEM, and even use a different self locking method.
The nuts in your picture are out-of-round, they were distorted by being pressed on the sides (see red arrows). Lateral pressure on the threads keeps the nuts from loosening.
There are many nuts and bolts on vehicles that are shown in repair manuals as “non-reusable”.
In the shop, those lower ball joint/control arm nuts are removed every day when replacing CV boots or when removing engines or transmissions. They always get reused.
That’s what I was thinking. I highly doubt they always get replaced, even though your “supposed to”. So you are saying those nuts themselves aren’t perfectly circular and slight out of round? This slightly oblong shape is a form of “self locking” and is the same thing as what is in the part description from Honda referenced to as “clinch”? What is the downside of reusing these nuts, at least in theory?
Had I not gone through the service information, I would have assumed they could be used as many times I wanted like any other nut, since there was no nylon locking ring, and nothing suggesting I couldn’t use it many times. I can barely notice it is slightly out of round, and only noticed it when you mentioned it. I don’t think I would have noticed otherwise (I didn’t).
Does the Honda nut look slightly out of round to you as well? There’s three pictures of it a few posts above. Maybe I see it ever so slightly.
There are many types of locking nuts, some are deformed on the top to cause friction, so the nut won’t loosen. In the picture below, the two on the right are similar to your example in post 10.
Installing and removing the nut causes wear, reducing the locking tension. Engineers want the nuts to be replaced after each use, but few people follow the instructions in the manual.
