Oh, the fun you’ll have,… no not really. Changing the rear wheel cylinder poses unique challenges for classic beetle owners.
Challenge number one is getting the huge nut off that holds the rear drum onto the axle. It is torqued to at least 250-foot pounds. I stood on the brake while my buddy Scott bounced up and down on a cheater bar to loosen it. Then we removed the rear hub and found an incredible mess inside. I sprayed brake cleaner on the entire assembly so we could get to the root of the problem.
In the picture above, that is after I cleaned the assembly. The telltale sign of the leak is the dark spot on the cement next to the tire impression. This is where I found the puddle when I backed the beetle out of the shop. The left boot on the wheel cylinder was full of brake fluid so that confirmed it really was the brake cylinder that was leaking. So next I ordered a new cylinder and then waited for about a week for the part to show up. If your curious, I purchased an ATE wheel cylinder from autohauseaz.com. I believe I paid around $25.00 for the cylinder. It’s hard to find this much fun for 25 dollars anymore. I have had pretty good luck with these guys and the parts they supply.
So, with the new cylinder, I just needed to slip it into place – easy! Then reattach the steel brake line – hard and frustrating. I made my own hell with the brake line because WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE was just unscrew it from the old cylinder and then leave it in the backing plate hole. In my stupidity I pulled the brake line out of the hole which changed the angle of attack when reinstalling it.
Like most mechanical projects in my life, I look forward to doing them, until I’m in the middle of them. Then I start to ask myself why on earth I thought it would be fun. Even Eva gets disenchanted about halfway through and begins her vocal protests. Once my hands are greasy though, I think even she knows that she is stuck in the shop with me until I’m finished.
You might think that maybe having a beer would help, but you would be wrong. I’ve created a Venn diagram to show what happens if you decide a beer will help you with you VW project (or any project for that matter. Once you have the overlapping of beer and tools, well that’s where mistakes happen – so avoid that! Save a cold one for when you are all done and you’re putting your tools away.
After I finally got the brake line connected, I couldn’t get the drum back on. It just became one fun event after another. While I waited for clowns, balloons, and circus music to come pouring out of my beetle, I took a break (no pun intended) and called my old mechanic Terry, and we trouble shot the drum issue. There were a couple of issues, but the main one being that I needed to pull the entire brake shoe assembly up in the backing plate. After tugging a couple of times, it moved up and the hub went on. This was followed by the large nut which I still need to torque to 250-foot pounds. Then I attached the wheel and let the car down off the bottle jack.
Next up is bleeding the brakes and the final torque of the axle nut. Bleeding brakes isn’t a big deal, I am becoming a pro at that. I’d like to feel optimistic about the bug at this point, but I just have this crazy feeling that the other shoe is about to drop. So, stay tuned and let’s see how this turns out. Man, I seem to say that a lot! There is nothing difficult about the remaining steps, but my only concern is with torquing the axle nut. I can see now why people buy a tool to screw onto their drum to hold the wheel in place, however, Scott had that tool with him, and my lug nuts are not lock enough to utilize it.
