Delayed repair of peripheral nerve injuries often results in poor motor functional recovery. This may be due to the deterioration or loss of endoneurial pathways in the distal nerve stump before motor axons can regenerate into it. In this study we have developed a rat hindlimb model to determine if regeneration of either motor or sensory nerve down a distal nerve stump will allow the successful regeneration of a cut motor nerve 2 months later, as compared to the regeneration of a cut motor nerve into a 2 months chronically denervated distal nerve pathway. Using the rat femoral nerve, we protected distal endoneurial pathways of the saphenous nerve with either cross-suture of the quadriceps motor nerve (Group A) or re-suture of the saphenous nerve (Group B) to compare later motor regeneration into the “protected” saphenous nerve pathway to chronic denervation and “unprotected” saphenous nerve (Group C). A total of 45 rats, 15 per group, were operated on. After this protection (or lack of protection) for 2 months, the motor branch of the femoral nerve was cut and sutured to the distal saphenous to allow motor regeneration into protected and unprotected saphenous nerve stumps. The quantitative assessment of axonal regeneration was carried out after 6 weeks, 30 mm distal to the stuture site by applying a 4% solution of Fluorogold (FG). Rats were perfusion fixed 6 days later, the T11 to L2 spinal cord collected and the number of FG labelled femoral motoneurons in all the spinal cord sections counted. These experiments will determine if using an expendable sensory nerve to prevent distal endoneuiral pathway deterioration will allow for successful motor regeneration down long pathways.