We were replacing the rear shocks on my daughters 2003 Maxima. When I went to put the rear passenger wheel back on it had a lot of play. Pulled the wheel back off and the whole hub and disc are very loose. After pounding on the spindle nut to peal away where is it bent into the flat spot on the spindle to retain the nut so it can't self loosen I was able to get the nut off. The spindle looks to be in good condition.

On rockauto:
A hub + bearing is $25.
A hub + bearing + spindle is $50.

When I had the mechanic do the front bearings 10 year ago it took them 3 tries to get it right. The first two times the bearings failed after a few thousand miles... basically they didn't tension the spindle nut properly and finally bought the "special tool" for the third go round and the front bearings have been good for about 20K now.

So my question is how to tension the spindle nut for the rear bearings. My 67 F100 and 76 Scout were easy and done by feel but they are taper bearings.

Should I just buy the hub + bearings + spindle so I don't have to worry about proper tensioning? If I do buy the assembled spindle do I have to get the alignment checked afterwards?

P.S. The rear driver side is fine but I will do both rear driver and passenger side bearings since we have everything apart for the struts.

 

Two videos are showing 150 ftlbs for the rear spindle torque. And the inner bearing race came off the spindle without issue. So I think I am going to order:
Hub with bearings
new spindle nut.

After more research I am seeing that non of the hub/bearing combos come with the ABS tone ring. This makes me consider just buying a couple Timken bearings and using the current hub with tone ring and spindle... if only I had a press to press out the old bearings and press in the new bearings. I have been meaning to pick up a hydraulic press for the past 30 years but it always comes down to shop space.

I decided to buy a single Moog Hub + bearings from RockAuto for $32 and a spindle nut for $3.50 +$19 shipping = $54.20 total.

 

The Moog rear bearing from RockAuto came today. I was shocked when it had an ABS wheel / tone ring already installed as I had read most hub kit require moving the tone ring from the old hub. The hub fit perfectly.

I am having a miserable time getting the darned caliper back on the brake disc though. Getting the pads back in those stupid clips is not going well.

The rear disc brake has a parking brake that uses the main brake pads instead of a inner drum parking brake. How do I loosen the piston in the caliper? Does it turn? With a special tool? I tried to use a needle nose as a spanner but the piston didn't budge.

 

you will need a rear caliper piston tool to twist it. I also grind down the little bump in the middle of the inner brake pad where it contacts the caliper piston..

 

I did brakes on all 4 corners about 8 years ago, about 8000 miles ago. And I actually have one of those little cubes... somewhere. I remembered it as soon as I saw your picture. Thank you.

I ended up using the $20 kit in a plastic case from Amazon with all the adapter plates. It got the job done. I like the little Borg cube better! The thin metal bar handle on the Amazon kit immediately bent... just like the one in the video I watched.

I am very happy with the Moog hub assembly from RockAuto. Like I said above I like that it came with the ABS tone ring.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...choice=0-0-1-1

There were 3 different spindle nuts on RockAuto. Only one pictured showed the crush rim on the top of the nut that gets pounded down to keep the nut in place. That is the one I bought. The 30mm socket I used to take the old spindle nut off was too small for the new spindle nut and I had to use a inch pattern socket. So now the two different spindles use different size sockets to take them off.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...1616&jsn=10568

We love the FCS rear struts we got from RockAuto. The handling is a million times better and much smoother than the worn out shocks we replaced.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...t=15174&jsn=17

 

Recently I installed OEM Nissan rear pads and to my surprise, the OEM rear pads did not fit well into the rear brackets, I'm assuming the the previous owner installed some aftermarket calipers/brackets. I had to file down the OEM pads just a tad to make them slide smoothly.