Comments on: Drum Brakes and Rear Wheel Bearings http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/ Tech Procedures for early watercooled VW and Audi - Since 2001 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:00:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: cayenne http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/#comment-3136 cayenne Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:24:45 +0000 http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/#comment-3136 Thanks for the terrific pics and fun explanation...I just got done with the replacement of rear drums, shoes and cylinder plus two E brake cables on my old faithful 85 Diesel Golf. I do not think these brakes had been changed since I moved her down to Washington State from Alsska back in 98. I have over 190 k on this car and I plan on leeping it another 190k at least. One note when changing the E-cable.Take the parking lever OFF completely when feeding the new cables up. Also makes it easy to attach the e cable to the shoes. Now I am looking for the front disc brake pictures/storyboard..do you have em? Thanks for the terrific pics and fun explanation…I just got done with the replacement of rear drums, shoes and cylinder plus two E brake cables on my old faithful 85 Diesel Golf. I do not think these brakes had been changed since I moved her down to Washington State from Alsska back in 98. I have over 190 k on this car and I plan on leeping it another 190k at least.
One note when changing the E-cable.Take the parking lever OFF completely when feeding the new cables up. Also makes it easy to attach the e cable to the shoes.
Now I am looking for the front disc brake pictures/storyboard..do you have em?

]]> By: datavirtue http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/#comment-2632 datavirtue Sat, 07 Jun 2008 18:55:37 +0000 http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/#comment-2632 I just performed this repair on my 1993 VW Fox and I have a few notes to add. On my car removal of the parking brake cable was out of the question during a standard brake job. It was not accessable from inside the vehical and further inspection revealed that you needed to remove the exhaust to disconnect it from underneath. This made replacing the rear shoes a big hassle since I could not relieve the pressure on the cable to easily reinstall new shoes. I eventually figured out that I could wedge a very large screw driver or somthing of similar utility between the spring cladded cable and the small retaining bracket holding the cable in place. You can see this retaining bracket in the pics showing the new cable installed. When I wedged the screw driver between the cable and retaining bracket it allowed me to draw back the spring with a pair of pliars and slip on the parking brake lever to the new shoe. Very tricky but it worked twice. Otherwise when you try to draw the spring back the whole cable bends/distorts out of the way and you cant do anything. A couple other notes: My seals for the inner bearings stuck to the spindle due to rust/buildup. I thought the new ones would be fine but I was wrong. Have some fine grit sandpaper handy to remove all the buildup where the seals mount on the spindle before attemting to install the new drum. I didn't and it messed up my new seal; basically the spring got squeezed out of the new seal and jammed perfectly into the bearing between the two cages holding in the rollers. Not good! Make sure to pack/grease your new bearings properly. Another strange note, on my new shoes (WearEver Silver Part# NB559 Autozone) the right/front shoe on the passenger side did not have a hole for the retaining spring/post that holds the shoe to the drum base. I had to drill one! My brakes seemed to work a little better when I drove (rather fast) in reverse and applyied quick firm brake pressure to stop. I did this a couple of times. To bleed the brakes I always just open one bleeder at a time and let it run/drip till the air is flushed out. Always start at the farthest wheel from the master cylinder. Close the bleeder valve, pump the brakes and then open them to let them drip again. Do this until the brake pedal feels good. Watch and refill the master cylider as your doing this. DO NOT dry out the master cylinder. This procedure also flushes all the old fluid out of which mine was nasty. I just performed this repair on my 1993 VW Fox and I have a few notes to add.

On my car removal of the parking brake cable was out of the question during a standard brake job. It was not accessable from inside the vehical and further inspection revealed that you needed to remove the exhaust to disconnect it from underneath.

This made replacing the rear shoes a big hassle since I could not relieve the pressure on the cable to easily reinstall new shoes. I eventually figured out that I could wedge a very large screw driver or somthing of similar utility between the spring cladded cable and the small retaining bracket holding the cable in place. You can see this retaining bracket in the pics showing the new cable installed. When I wedged the screw driver between the cable and retaining bracket it allowed me to draw back the spring with a pair of pliars and slip on the parking brake lever to the new shoe. Very tricky but it worked twice. Otherwise when you try to draw the spring back the whole cable bends/distorts out of the way and you cant do anything.

A couple other notes:

My seals for the inner bearings stuck to the spindle due to rust/buildup. I thought the new ones would be fine but I was wrong. Have some fine grit sandpaper handy to remove all the buildup where the seals mount on the spindle before attemting to install the new drum. I didn’t and it messed up my new seal; basically the spring got squeezed out of the new seal and jammed perfectly into the bearing between the two cages holding in the rollers. Not good! Make sure to pack/grease your new bearings properly.

Another strange note, on my new shoes (WearEver Silver Part# NB559 Autozone) the right/front shoe on the passenger side did not have a hole for the retaining spring/post that holds the shoe to the drum base. I had to drill one!

My brakes seemed to work a little better when I drove (rather fast) in reverse and applyied quick firm brake pressure to stop. I did this a couple of times.

To bleed the brakes I always just open one bleeder at a time and let it run/drip till the air is flushed out. Always start at the farthest wheel from the master cylinder. Close the bleeder valve, pump the brakes and then open them to let them drip again. Do this until the brake pedal feels good. Watch and refill the master cylider as your doing this. DO NOT dry out the master cylinder. This procedure also flushes all the old fluid out of which mine was nasty.

]]> By: Mutt http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/#comment-2484 Mutt Fri, 02 May 2008 03:17:36 +0000 http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/#comment-2484 Wonderful... thank you for posting this. Wonderful… thank you for posting this.

]]> By: VWTattoo http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/#comment-54 VWTattoo Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:02:44 +0000 http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/2008/drum-brakes-and-rear-wheel-bearings/#comment-54 Good work, Timbo! New rear drums work VERY well when rebuilt such as you have shown here! This technote needs more pics, though... Just Kidding! :) Awesome job! Good work, Timbo! New rear drums work VERY well when rebuilt such as you have shown here!

This technote needs more pics, though… Just Kidding! :) Awesome job!

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