Brake Drum Removal

[geodon]

Ok, both my front drums are reluctant to come off.

One of them has "been there before" & is damaged insofaras the dust excluder lip has been broken off, most likely due to the prev owner taking to it with a hammer to try to persuade it to come off. IMHO this one is not re-useable as it can no longer keep out the road crap.

Now,the drums are fastened to the hub with 3 short set-screws. Does anyone know what thread they are? At 1st glance they seem to be seven sixteenths BSW 14 but they are not as I tried to screw a similar bolt in & it siezed after 1 turn!

The reason I ask is that I would like to try to screw long bolts into the mounting holes to act as "pushers" & force the drums off- a technique I've used for years to remove rear VW drums via long bolts lnto wheel mounting bolt holes. I would turn the wheel to make sure they don't bear down on anything important. Anyway, the "push" required is not that great.

Note the impact screwdriver! Without that & a kitchen blowtorch, those setcrews would still be in there!
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Comments?

[Landy Smurf]

i think they are a fairly course thread,can you not use the threaded hole provided for pushing the drum off,i had a problem getting one off my s1 and i found the best thing was using screwdrivers,prier bars and wedges worked really well also you might need to file the edge/width of the hub to get it to slide off easier,just saw it was a front diff mine was rear wether that makes any difference

[101RRS]

Back the shoes off, remove the drum retaining screws, gently tap the drum around is circumference on the wheel side (loosens the shoes from the drum), put WD 40 around the base od each wheel stud and then gently tap with a block of wood from the back of the drum working your way around the circumference - do not concentrate on one area.

There is a a hole (not countersunk) in the wheel face of the drum to screw in a bolt to help remove the drum. If the above has not worked screw in the bolt but only enough to take up the tension. Tap the drum on the other side then take up the tension in the bolt again and repeat until the drum has slowly started to move. It must come out equally all around - if one side is coming out more than the other it will just jam up.

Garry

[JDNSW]

As Garrycol says. The threaded hole is the same thread as the screws you took out, from memory I would say 3/8"W not 7/16".

If it still won't move after all the above, try heating the drum hot enough to burn off the oil on it, avoiding getting the hub hot. As a last resort, you can always remove the hub complete with drum by undoing the wheel bearing retaining nuts.

John

[geodon]

John, you're dead right re the thread. The El Cheapo die set I use has 7/16W on the die that fits the 3/8 thread! Oh well! You get what you pay for!
I like the heating idea. This thing has been standing for a decade & prob has a lot of "fur" on the inside of the drums.
Mother hasn't noticed that the kitchen blow torch is missing yet! I will have to steal the oven mitts too.
It may be time to re-comission my trusty Comet3 oxy acetylene set if I can only stomach dealing with BOC again!
When will someone invent some throw-away welding gas containers for part-timers like me?

[JDNSW]

.....
It may be time to re-comission my trusty Comet3 oxy acetylene set if I can only stomach dealing with BOC again!
....

Having similar feelings about BOC, I now deal with Air Liquide - but it is still pretty expensive.

John

[Barney Bitza]

G'day,

Last weekend was spent struggling with the front drums on Barney,
In the end I found it much easier to remove the hubs, mine also has selectro hubs and very seized wheel cylinders/shoes......
I dont think the extra bulk of the selectro's helps much with easy removal!

Cheers Sam

[dandlandyman]

If all else fails, remove the plumbing and mounting bolts from the wheel cylinders and everything should come off together, or at least create enough clearance to do it. Sometimes there is a huge lip behind the shoes and seized cylinders won't retract far enough toget past it. Hope it helps.

Dan.
69 2A 88" pet4, 68 2B FC pet6, more coming soon.

[drifter]

They must have belted it pretty hard to break that dust lip. If it's toast, like you suggested, I would just complete the job they started with a big hammer.

My front ones (I haven't tried the back ones yet) were also pretty well stuck on there.

I did the Garry trick (backed off the brakes, belted the drum a bit with the hammer & sprayed WD40 around the studs) and they were still determined to stay there - so I rotated the drum while belting it with the hammer and it came off pretty easily - without breaking anything.

[chazza]

I agree with you Geodon that the drum should be discarded, which probably means getting rid of its mate as well, as brake parts should be replaced on both ends of the axle. If nothing else; that drum is now out-of-balance

If none of the other methods work (removing the hub and destroying the seized wheel cylinder worked for me) chain drill a row of holes across the drum from the broken edge up to where the weep holes in the vertical face are. Do this in three paces about 120deg. apart and then whack the drum with a heavy hammer and it should break quite easily. Avoid drilling into the shoes which will contain asbestos most probably; so somewhere up the top near the wheel cylinder would be a good place to try.

The good news is that drums, cylinders, screws, springs and shoes are very cheap and it is worth replacing anything that looks too worn,

Cheers Charlie