brake drum removal.

[hjalbert]

Unfortunately, I lent my bently manual to a friend, and cannot get ahold of him to get it back. I am not sure if the dasher is the same as rabbits, but do any of you know the steps needed to get the dashers drums off? I looked on the back of it, and there is only one rubber plug< and i do not see anything to turn to adjust. I have never needed to remove drums before, but now both Wheel cylinders are leaking, so I am doing a brake job.

[Quantum-man]

Insert screwdriver into wheel bolt hole and rotating hub bacwards, the auto adjuster is horizontally towards the front otf the car. Insrt screwdriver into it's spring and it should lift the adjuster and release brakes...

[82vdub]

If the Dasher rear brake setup is similar to the Rabbit and Jetta's, there's a triangular shaped wedge that gets pulled down by a spring as the brake shoes wear and expand. You need to push up this wedge and this will allow the brake shoes to not have as much tension on the drum. If you look in a bolt hole with a flashlight, you will be able to see it in there.

[hjalbert]

I guess I was just confused, when I pulled the dust cover off axle stub it looks like the drum turns directly on the bearing in there. I will give it a shot.

[Fatmobile]

You might be able to pull the drums,
without having to release the adjuster.

It's the vertical spring inside the lug bolt hole.

It's good to get everything in there changed;
springs, shoes, wheel cylinders.
I even removed the backing plates and painted them last time.

Before you pull the middle nut and remove the drum,
Jiggle it, see if there is any play in the bearings,
if so they will need replaced too.

[hjalbert]

ok, i got it off, I have never done rear brakes on a front wheel drive car. I had already bought wheel cylinders, shoes, and the hardware pack with all new springs. And new seals. Any idea how to get the old ones out and new ones in? I did not get new bearings, but am going to see if they have them in stock, as I do not trust my ability to tell if they are any good, but the grease packed around them has definitely seen better days. I went ahead and cleaned everything out, but am kind of stuck on the seals. It looks like I have to pull them out to get the inner bearing out.

[Vincent Waldon]

It looks like I have to pull them out to get the inner bearing out.

Yup.. you can use a drift from the other side to knock 'em out.

[hjalbert]

got em out, put new seal in before I got the great Idea to clean everything and paint it. maybe new seal will come out easy, if not it was really cheap and there is no way this thing is going anywhere tomorrow. I am to tired. max diameter on drums says 7.913. I measure 7.875. I do not know how much they wear, or what the I.D. is to begin with. Should I replace them? thanks

[82vdub]

Any shop that turns drums will be able to measure them and tell you if they are worn past their limit. IF so, replace them, otherwise, I wouldn't. I would also suggest that if the inner race surface that the bearing rides on in the drum isn't scored or damaged to not replace it. They say that the bearing and it's inner race are a matched set, but I think there's small enough tollerances that replacing that inner race really isn't needed. It's a pain to get them out and pound the new one's in. I haven't replaced an inner race for probably over 10 years and have not had an issue.

[Fatmobile]

I don't turn the drums, unless they are really scored.
I think it changes the curve the shoes ride against.
Probably not enough to matter...

The races are easy to drive out.
I kept a set and ran a grinder all around the outside.
Now I use them to drive in new races, without them getting stuck in the bore too.

Just bought a tool for pressing grease into the bearings, that's the part I dreaded; hand pressing grease into the bearings.
Time consuming and messy.

If you run into trouble getting the wheel cylinders off,..
I've got some tips for that too.

[Quantum-man]

To check the drums, simply reassemble, add wheel, and gradually apply parking brake. Check for evenness of braking as you rotate the wheel.
Pad limits are 2.5mm for riveted shoes and 1.5mm for glued.

Are your brakes the auto-adjust lozenge types, or the earlier knurled adjuster type?

If pads are low but otherwise good condition, but not very strong on the parking brake, then cleaning the surfaces with methelated spirits make a world of difference.

To change shoes, release parking brake at it's adjuster behind the handle by the exhaust.
Then work from the bottom of the shoes up [having first released the dished springed clips actually going through the brakes] using clamp pliers free the bottom of one shoe and remove the big spring then work upwards

To check for bearings, the test is no rumble when spun with wheel attached, and able to spin freely when nut tightened up enough to remove all but the smallest of movement when grasped with hands on top and bottom of wheel and shook [push/pull with hands] Tighten bearings with small torque, say 2lbft and then release 1/4 to 1/8 turn. Bearings may be good, yet there can still be excessive play.
This is due to wear in the stub axle.

There is a cheat to rectify this :

A spring punch will 'raise the flesh ' around it's punch marks, and so increase the diameter of the stub to grip the inner of the inner bearing. Too much though and the inner of the inner bearing will wedge on the stub, and make it hell to get the brake hub off the brakes in the future

[hjalbert]

Thanks for the replies. I completely cleaned all the old grease out of the bearings and the drums. Question is how much should I put back into the cavity in the drums? Should I fill it up to where the outer bearing goes on? I bought the tool for packing the bearings themselves. pretty nifty. Also, I bought the valvoline synthetic grease, it says "for disc brakes", and a bunch of other stuff. They had some that said not for disc brakes, but it was not synthetic, and I wanted to use the same stuff all the way around. I would assume (that can be dangerous) that since it doesn't say not for drums that I can use it. Am I right? It may sound like a stupid question, but I don't have a clue. I figure Disc brakes probably generate more heat and need a grease that can handle a higher temperature, but like I said, i don't know.

[82vdub]

Your correct that disc brakes generate more heat and that's why some greases say for disc brakes. You just want to make sure you use a wheel bearing grease, not a general petrolium grease or white grease, things like that. Wheel bearing grease.

I've always put a little grease into the area adjacent to the wheel bearing location just to try to hold in as much grease or have as much grease contact with the bearing that I can. I don't believe any grease in the middle of the space between the bearings will do anything for you. I don't do it. I'd say that grease is cheap and don't skimp on it, but don't go nuts.

After years of packing bearing by hand, I bought a self contained jar that you use to pack the bearings. It's been nice the 10 times I've had to use it as compared with by hand or using the grease gun with the saucers tool.

[hjalbert]

darn! i bought the saucer tool because it was 6.99 and the cup one like you are talking about was about 20$. well, here is a before and after picture of the drivers side. About to go put it on the car. Thanks again to everyone for all the help!


and after!


Oh, and I had primer, and yellow, so i primed, and painted, i did not specifically buy yellow paint for them!

[82vdub]

Dang near looks new, and I could definately tell you're not living in the rust bucket (confirmed after I thought that then looked at your location). The saucer bearing greaser works just fine, but since it's open it's subject to collecting dust and hairs and junk on the grease. The self contained one includes a dust cover to keep the undesirables out