In my 40+ years of wrenching on my bikes never have I encountered anything like this. Went to remove the rear wheel today because it's time for tires, again, and typically after the initial loosening of the rear axle nut it literally spins off with your hand. After some initial movement the axle nut will not budge and is bound up so bad it ended up damaging the left wheel alignment indicator where the two flats on the opposite side of the axle sit in the aluminum block of the alignment indicator. It now has a couple of divots/bulges. My bad. I am at a loss as to what could be wrong or how to even get the rear axle nut off at this point without causing more damage. I know if I cam out the left wheel alignment indicator the axle will just spin I am totally screwed hence why I stopped. When I initially removed the cotter pin and backed off the chain adjuster locknuts there did not appear to be anything wrong with the axle threads. Any and all help would be immensely appreciated please.

* Last updated by: danfzx14 on 3/27/2015 @ 2:09 PM *

Wow. If it's a broken thread, which I think it is, you'll need to split the nut.

If the axle threads are mangled you'll need a new axle as well.

Nut splitting tools are fairly cheap.

My guess is galled threads. Any idea where I can get a nut splitter that has a 1-1/4" flat to flat capacity? I've been searching and come up empty so far. This really bums me out.

All the ones I'm finding that are big enough are hydraulic and $$$$.

Have you are sharp chisel?

Hydraulic is all I'm finding too in that capacity. I do have a sharp chisel. Just concerned with creating other damage in the surrounding area. I was going to go the chisel route this afternoon but stopped. Figured I was not in the correct frame of mind at the time. That's why I posted on the forum to stop me from doing something REAL bad. I'm starting to think a dremel with a cutting wheel might be a safer way to split the nut???

Conservative move:
1. WD-40 or GM and their stuff. I prefer GM for all those rusted exhaust header bolts and coolant rotted threads. Soak the front, back, tilt the bike so the liquid walks down the threads and keep soaking.
2. Socket with breaker bar. Use blue paint tape and wrap the nut so the inch socket's gap is being taken up because it's a little loose on the nut being an inch size not metric.
3. Buy a 6 point mm box end wrench and stand on the wrench and bounce up and down on it. If 12 point is the only available in mm, you are stuck and tape it tighter at the nut.

No joy move:
A. Propane torch to the nut?

B. None of those worked. Like you said, use a cutting wheel and cut the nut at an angle so you have a lot more surface to snap that chisel with. So looks like a 9 o'clock slash / down the flat and a peak. See what I mean? You want that chisel away from the groove and hit in there to snap the nut open. You want to cut the flat this short of entering the axle's threads. Groove as much of the slice as you can. You want to slice deep at the peak of the nut so you are going to take and whack that peak of the nut, not a direct hit at the groove, but take the chisel and smack a 45° hit at the peak so the tear starts there and the flat more or less opens up. You salvage the axle threads, rather than pound the axle threads in with a hit in between the slice? NO! The split is to raise it off the axle threads at this point and still be able to spin off.

We see it?

I'm starting to think a dremel with a cutting wheel might be a safer way to split the nut???

I'm curious to hear what the problem was.

A round cutoff wheel won't reach the nut closest to the adjuster/axle interface. It'll be a small amount of uncut material and thus moot.

A sharp chisel will get right up against the adjuster and cut straight down.

I would place a jack under the swingarm directly below the axle. Make contact with the nut directly, preferably.

* Last updated by: hagrid on 3/27/2015 @ 8:31 PM *

^^yeah. I'd dremel first, cut what you can't reach second. Either way, I think you're going to gouge that adjuster block so might as well write that off. propane torch might help but that might burn the paint too.

Thanks for all the ideas. Didn't think of putting cardboard over the work areas. I did forget to mention that the bike is on stands while the forks and shock are out being serviced, had a leaking fork seal which gave me the excuse to have them overhauled, so I won't be doing any heavy banging while the bike is on stands.

* Last updated by: danfzx14 on 3/28/2015 @ 8:05 AM *

The hag trick of a jack under the swing got me thinking to use a vice grip and clamp it on the nose of the axle. Shove the jack under the vice grip. That jack under the swing does not keep that axle end from taking a tweak, but the jack at the end of the nose kills two birds. And I'd use some huge hammer to help with the dead blow focused on the nut cut. Saves the swing, the axle, the buckle at the stand.

My deal was think 45° angle to the smack. Think of an old cb750 oil cartridge and how that oring took such a bite, squids were way too tight on that 12mm head size and rounded those bolt heads right off. They'd bring it to the shop. Here I am with [an 8yr run] tons to break loose, aftermarket came out with a 17mm head size and out engineered the head, but not the weight gain or the oring was the real secret to a clean 12mm head.

I'd have some old rusted out chisel from the 30's looks like, walk over to the grinder and put on a sharp cutting edge, I'd cut myself if I pushed down any harder to feel the shallow tip. I made the bite shaves, meaning, real close or say the opposite that of a sharpened pencil is way too weak of a tip and deep taper.

See if this cut angle works and how you bang the thickest part is to sheer away the shallow grind line open. Make a square on a piece of paper, in your head, look at a plain old nut, thread hole facing you. Look how thick the flat is; at the meeting of each hex flat. The one dimensional square on the piece of paper says to start the cut at the lower left, then end in the middle at the top of the square.

That angle says I am going to bang at the flat on the flat's meeting point is that one shot at a 45° angle. I want to open the cut and my lower right cut is not at the hex meeting point, but I am cutting a little to the right of the end of the square so my chisel is taking some wall and not an edge? I'm off the cliff with the chisel placement at the very corner of the square.

Did you see where I'd have more meat on the lower left flat hex and now 45 that sucker and one of two things happens. It sheers open it's so stuck. Or the angle of the dangle moved the whole nut.

And that means, I have to look at that nut and visually see how deep is deep and just cut no deeper than thru the ceiling and grinding into the axle's threads... I have to sit there and eyeball that kind of sheer that will occur you on the thick end of the hex and the cut over the most shallow part of the hex is right in the middle on out to a little right of the [paper'd] hex... See it?

From here and one 750 between you and me... A Piece Of Cake. For sure a dremel. The standard cutting wheel is so huge, yes, you could grind the flat many times out with a straight cut. The dremel has less to cut thru; heading up the middle starting from the end of the nut. But then again, you lost the chisel moving the angle open in a sheer. So you knock off those slices coming out with the bigger wheel. Forget me walking that out. I'm back to a dremel; earplugs; safety glasses; shop vac hose right at that drem, bungee'd to the bike and sucking from the top; a magnifying glass so I can get a closer look on the depth of the cut to the ceiling of the axle's threads.

All I want is that slice to grow out and expand off the threads. Ah, and where does the drem wheel end at the middle of the nut flat? I now want to make a cut from the end of the wheel cut and now cut across and down or better if at an angle so you have a way to cut the ring that is still around the axle at the end of the nut. Say if no joy with that single nut sliced up the farthest didn't move it, then I'd try that T-slice at it.

So I finally got the bitch off, no pun intended. Using a dremel tool with a cutting wheel the axle nut came off in 2-1/2 pieces with a lot of banging with a hammer and chisel. Unbelievable how difficult this was. Each time I removed a piece of the nut I thought for sure it would come off. Not sure if you can tell from my crappy pictures but it looks like for some reason one of the threads on the axle was folding over on itself. Why I don't know but it definitely would explain why the nut did not want to budge. Luckily there was no collateral damage other that I need to replace the axle, slider blocks, washer and the nut. Freakin expensive weekend!! Thank you all very much for your input. It is appreciated immensely.

* Last updated by: danfzx14 on 3/28/2015 @ 2:59 PM *

congrats. I admire your persistence! I believe the nut splitting I did was also unsuccessful until I made a cut on opposite sides. It just won't come off unless you can pull it apart in two equal halves. But 3 unequal halves seems to get it done. Good job.

I use a drill to make holes in a line then hammer/chisel expands the nut and it comes off. I also use a burnzamatic on the nut to see if it will break up the rust or corrosion.

Your way worked well too!!!!

After your description of initially breaking loose then tightening back up I'm not at all surprised by your first photo.

I have a small tidbit my pappy taught me that might help you going forward: if, after breaking a fastener loose it suddenly tightens, stop. Work the fastener back and forth, gently feeling for where the stoppage is. Sometimes a fastener with a broken thread can be coaxed to bring up and eject the debris by working back and forth whilst never applying enough hard pressure to embed the debris.

Edit: the only thing I can think of to help you prevent this from happening again is to apply some Nevr-Seize to the new components. I would lean towards the Cu compound since the other variety is Al.

* Last updated by: hagrid on 3/28/2015 @ 7:04 PM *

Whats the Cu an Al mean?

Copper and Aluminum.

I would use the copper infused preparation because it's softer and less likely to weld to aluminum parts under extreme pressure.

danfzx's predicament is the perfect illustrator for the application of soft metal thread lubricant. His unfortunate trial is the direct result of the nut grabbing a portion of the axle thread, via friction, and forcing said portion someplace it had no room to go.

The only prevention is to negate the friction necessary to pick up a portion of thread and drive it somewhere for there is no room.

Since day one I've been using a grease contains an EP2 additive on both axle threads. Since danfzx posted his findings, I'm transitioning to a soft metal thread lube.

* Last updated by: hagrid on 3/28/2015 @ 7:58 PM *

I usually have plain old axle grease on the threads after I grease the axle for insertion. Neverseize on those threads from here on in. That was another thing they always used in the shop back in the day.

I suppose the copper kind is the brown colored one. That's the high temp one.

* Last updated by: Rook on 3/28/2015 @ 8:52 PM *

I suppose the copper kind is the brown colored one. That's the high temp one.

I'm curious here...if using bearing grease on the threads prior to tightening...won't this be sufficient to allow the nut to tighten and loosen without threads being 'broken off'.I mean,the mention of the threads 'welding' to the nut won't happen,will it?I had this issue on one of my sprocket bolts once.Not the
breaking threads,but it just wouldn't break free,and I rounded the flats trying to get it to bust loose.I did what some said here...with the grinding thing,split the nut with a chisel...it finally opened enough to loosen.The threads however were fine.WHY would it be stuck like that?I couldn't detect any electrolysis happening.It was just,STUCK.After that I coated the studs with bearing grease...never had it happen again.The grease will stop that from happening won't it?My axle nut has always spun off nicely.You don't suppose maybe that the nut possibly was overtightened?You're supposed to turn it 'back' to the cotter hole if it won't turn to the next hole line up when completing the final torque.I have a mark punched into my axle at the tip.That always gets lined up the same every time I remove it.And the nut always turns a certain number of turns everytime the same.If you get that axle turned 180 out from where it once was,the thread turn amount will change.And so will the nut when placing it for cotter pin lineup.I've marked the nut flat as well.When all was tightened and the pin removed prior to reinstalling.

IDK if this will affect the tightening torque.The main thing is...it won't be consistently tightening the same way everytime if that axle gets installed 180 out.If you have to tighten it MORE to line that cotter pin hole up,then over time,the threads could become weaker?Maybe?IDK.Just a thought really.I always line mine up the same everytime.Same turns,same force...all that.Never had any stuck axle nuts using this method.

* Last updated by: Grn14 on 3/28/2015 @ 10:57 PM *

I imagine grease works good to prevent binding from corrosion. Neverseize works better. If there's a lot of heat generated by torquing threads, grease might melt away, maybe? Neverseize has finely ground metal to act as a berrier, I guess. The manual doesn't spec anti-seizing agent for the axle nut but couldn't hurt. I used it on my sprocket nuts because they felt so damn tight.

I'll be going the anti-seizing agent route on the front and rear from here on out. I can't even imagine what a catastrophe this would be if it happened on the front axle...

The only reason I did not cut the nut into two pieces using slices opposite to each other was fear of bunging up the swingarm. All slices were made at the rearward opening of the swingarm where the aluminum adjuster block sits. I considered the adjuster block a sacrificial piece rather than damage the swingarm. Cutting in any other area other than that one risked damaging the swingarm. That's one of the reasons the gouge in the axle is so bad because when I could not get the axle nut off after the first slice I used the hammer and chisel to rotate the nut one more flat to my safe cutting spot and when I made the second slice and the nut still would not come off I had to rotate the nut again. I've learned over the years patience rather than haste ALWAYS yields better results.

Rook not only did I cover the surrounding areas with cardboard as you suggested but I also put several layers of painters tape over all the surrounding swingarm areas. If I had damaged the swingarm I would be REALLY depressed about it. Thanks for that helpful hint of extra protection.

Hub I know I should not need to be reminded but thanks about using safety precautions...I even used mechanics gloves for this. Years ago I new of a guy who lost an eye while using a dremel with a cutoff wheel without using eye protection. When the wheel shattered.....his eye was gone!!! There are no "do overs".

For those that are interested OEM parts thru RonAyers.com would've run me over $163 not including S&H. Did the ebay thing for all the parts last night: axle, nut, washer left and right adjuster blocks for $31.00 shipped. Saved my ass a good chunk of change.

* Last updated by: danfzx14 on 3/29/2015 @ 12:56 PM *

Check the threads on those parts closely before assembly.

If the old axel is true you could use it to make a static wheel balancer

IMO, the factory-recommended torque figure for the rear axle nut is ludicrous.
get the damned thing tight, slip in the cotter (or replace with a lynch pin) and fuggitaboutit.