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right. so i gets me 7mm ring spanner from the shop, it fits just nice... decide to check if the WD40 has worked its way into the nipple threads, before going to the trouble of depressurising the spare, breaking the seal on the fluid bottle and setting the rest of the kit up..

handbrake on hard, reverse gear and a quick bez of the the starter to make sure all wheels are locked, pump the pedal to remove all servo, jack up at rear, back right wheel removed, another squirt of the stuff just to be sure.... get spanner in place, fit tube from nipple down into jar just in case anything comes out, gloves and goggles on..

give the spanner a first, not-very-hard tweak, just to see how stiff it might be.......... nipple comes clean off. Sheared half way down the thread. B@ll@cks!!! Seems the rust was stronger than the actual metal!

try it the other side, give it a mega blast of the stuff and a few more minutes to work in... a gentler push.... EXACTLY THE SAME RESULT. The thing twists in half as if it was made of butter.
I'm now the proud owner of a car with dirty brake fluid and two busted nipples....


ARRRRRRGH....
now what?

just when i thought this car couldn't cost me any more money, looks like a drum replacement or something on the cards. Unless I can eke out the remains of the old nipples somehow and replace them???

Blown my window of opportunity for the fluid change as well. The earliest i'd be able to get replacement parts now would be thursday. Bang goes hols as well I think.
Not sure if I feel up to coming over to the show any more with this. Might sit home and research ways to sort this mess out
unless theres a chance someone there might be able to help out?!

that sucks mate

if it had been the front i've got a caliper you could've had, but as for the rears i haven't got a clue. sorry

yep............ could have been worse i suppose - could have done something that meant fluid was p*ssing all over the place

at least it's not a plague case fluid swap - whatever the stuff thats in the system is, it's pretty hard core and the cars still stopping "ok" even though it's pitch black... so i can drive it til i've figured out what to do

right pain in the arse though, if they'd unscrewed all right i probably could have had the whole thing sorted inside of 45mins

i had that same problem, first i tryed to get it out using a screw extractor but i also snapped this so i had to end up buying a new part i cant remember the name of the part needed but it cost me about £16+vat from a local motor factors

you mean the big plate for the brake cyl + shoes to attach to, or just the ickle nipple? or somefin else....

if its the plate then screw it, i'll take it down a garage to sort - one thing i am not yet prepared to play with is my brake internals!

just replace the wheel cylinders. they're only about £5 & it's just two screws once you've taken the drum & shoes off.

hayesey wrote:just replace the wheel cylinders. they're only about £5 & it's just two screws once you've taken the drum & shoes off.

Nice reply - beat me to it as well - neat simple and bloody effective.....

looks scary though..... me & springs don't mix. plus dont you need to pull the hub or something like that?

(working very quickly from memory as i havent time atm to grab haynes)

Brake drums confuse the hell out of me.

My Golf has disks on the back, and when I had to take my rear drums apart I was there for hours trying to release the damn lever thingy.

Good luck fixng this.

I think that I will have to do a major brake overhaul soon... drums, shoes, brake lines.....

They are pretty easy once you get familiar with them. Sometimes its a pain releasing the drum. I've just got a pair of wheel cylinders for the runabout as the brakes feel really bad and the fronts have just been upgraded. Make sure you don't over tighten the wheel bearings as they are the tapered ones that need to expand.

so what is a wheel cylinder??

removing/replacing bearings? i let qualified mechanics deal with that stuff.

this certainly sounds like some kind of hub pulling job, and there's no way i have the tools for that - in fact it's probably cheaper for me to let a garage do it, even at £100+, than to get all the kit. even if the cylinders ARE £5 a pop.

maybe a disc conversion, yeah....

mind you if i was to get it open somehow, that'd give me a good chance to see how much space is in there and if a hub motor could be easily fitted

but at the end of the day, if there's something that stops my car going, i'm happy to have a bash at that... but if there's something that might prevent it from stopping... then, hell... hand it over to the guys who fix it 2 or 3 times a week (and charge royally for it, granted).

(( if the stuff proves easy enough to get and the job isn't above a 3-spanner, however, now is the best time for me to at least try it.... for the first couple weeks in my new job - which is a train commute - i'm having time off at the one old one which i have to drive to ))


argh..... ambivalence overload! *head go pop*

ok having had a good browse thru the haynes several times over, it looks like it boils down to this:

"Tie off" hydraulic system by means of depleting servo then sealing a plastic sheet over the master cylinder filler neck.
Jack up & remove wheel
Prise off the literal hub-cap (hammer & chisel )
Take out a retaining split-pin --- what size would this be??? (need to know, to get a fresh one)
Undo hub nut, whatever size that is as well.
Remove a keyed washer
Prise out a bearing.... looks like it comes out by hand??
Heave the drum off with much cussing and thumping
Undo a spring with pliers...
Clean off the brake line junction, undo a nut holding it to the cylinder, remove brake line and seal off so it doesnt get crap in it.
Undo the bolts holding it on.
Swap old cylinder for fresh one.
Rebolt nice 'n' firm, reconnect brake line, get the shoe spring reconnected.
Jemmy the drum back on.
Get the bearing and washer back in and do the bolt up fairly tight.
Slacken it off til the washer can be moved about with gentle pressure from a screwdriver.
Put fresh split pin in and bend the ends over to hold the lot in place (doesnt seem like there's much holding the wheel on now i've seen this!)
Hammer hub cap back on.
Bleed the living daylights out of the thing.
Replace wheel, check brake both operates and releases, and jack back down.
Repeat for other side.

Which seems like a fairly long list, but nothing too complex or tricky like i'd feared - doesnt need a hub puller unless the drum itself is badly stuck because of severely binding shoes... just the backache of getting the hubcap and actual drum off, dealing with the spring, and bleeding something that's going to be supplied probably half full of air.
And finding out what size the split pin is.

Anyone know?

Mind you if the shoes themselves ever need doing, might still leave that to the garage. Four sets of springs? Get lost!

I had a rash on my cock once. It f'ing hurt. Sorry to be a bit off topic.

Simple things, yes.. however, with drum brakes, nothing is simple You'll be able to do it, it'll just be a pain in the arse. I tried to change my brake shoes a while ago.. gave up and decided there was enough life left in my current ones that I just couldn't be bothered

Getting the drum itself off isn't too hard.. Remove split pin, remove nut, various bearings and washers fall out, spend 10 minutes trying to jiggle the drum itself off and then you're there... then you have to work out what everything inside the drum does

heartagram.. um.. glad you shared that with us