Talk to me about nuts

[twomanyjeep]

Castle nuts that is... I was working under the front end of my truck this weekend replacing the front diff (prolly one of the most challenging jobs on the truck). At any rate, the manual suggested removing the relay rod to gain enough room to pivot the front diff out. I removed the castle nuts on the pitman arm and idler arm. Which brings me to my question, the Haynes manual says to NOT reuse the castle nuts and to get a new one. I've reused castle nuts on my jeep before when servicing the steering, why would it be any different for the truck? How many of you out there replace the castle nut? Where is the best place to find them if you do replace them? Thanks in advance for any help!

[S15vortecpwr]

i reuse them. i never replace them unles they are damage.

you will put cotter pins back in so the nuts can't come off. put them back on and go on your merry way.

[Ordie]

You can reuse the Castle Nuts but the Cotter Keys should be one time use only, being in Aviation we replace with new everytime. On a vehicle I would say unless you really screwed up the cotter key removing it you can reuse it.

[twomanyjeep]

Thanks for the replies guys, I always use brand new cotter pins regardless of how the condition of the ones I remove. I just never heard of "single-use" castle nuts. Threadlock nuts are the only nuts I've ever heard of replacing after a single use but couldn't understand why a standard nut would need to be replaced, esepcially at the low torque that these nuts are put under. Thanks again!

[90blueS10]

never re used one, ive had no problems and ive had my suspension apart a few times.

[johnnybuttz]

i usually reuse them also, but i run them down and ck them to make sure the threads are still good...