Back Pedalling

In my last post I said the next task was fitting the brake shoes and drums. This is a simple matter of attaching the handbrake level to the rear shoe and then joining it to the front shoe with a spacer and spring. Here's what you're left with:

This is then attached to the backplate by sliding it onto the brake cylinder (from below), and placing the bottom into the adjusters. The shoes are then secured using the retaining springs. Finally the lower return spring is attached before hooking the handbrake cable to the handbrake level. Once this has been done, your brakes should look like this:

The drum can then be offered up to the shaft and bolted in place (though the bolt cannot be tightened fully until the wheels are fitted and back on terra firma). Looks nice doesn't it:

So that's the drivers side finished. Unfortunately the passenger side didn't go quite so smoothly... The drum only went this far on using my rubber mallet.

At this point I had two choices. The first was to spend the next twenty minutes hammer the drum home with the certain knowledge that future access to the brake shoes etc was going to be very hard/impossible (see my earlier posts). My second option was to remove the offending axle shaft and either have it machined to the correct diameter or to replace it with a new one (which presumably would have the correct diameter). Being naturally cautious I have gone for the second option.

Rear Brakes (Almost) On

It has rained a lot in Scotland this year. In fact I think it has been raining more or less permanently since my last post. I know it is no excuse for not working on a garaged Beetle project... but it is the excuse I have decided to use and I will stick to it. However I am immediately going to contradict my chosen excuse when I point out that today, despite the rain, I headed out to the garage to fit the rear brakes.

On the passenger side the brake cylinder was bolted to the backplate as was the handbrake cable. Then on both sides the brake "star" adjusters were fitted. These where a much tighter fit than I expected - however with a bit of jiggling and tapping they seated correctly and still turned without the need for excessive force. The bolts were then coated with copper ease before being screwed all the way into the "star" adjusters. This is what I was left with:

I spent the rest of my two hour stint cleaning up the old spacers and handbrake arm in preparation for fitting to the new brake shoes. The next job will be to fit the new shoes and the new brake drums! The final job on the rear axle will then be to fit the new rubber gaiters and replace the oil.