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Alzax3
10-05-2009, 12:56 PM
Right. I've just come up against a slight problem with my rear drum brakes, and I guess someone will know the answer!

Dismantled them, as you do, and found that although the car comes with nice deep rear drums, some wombat had fitted narrow shoes, which were completely lost, running on only about two thirds of the surface, and near down to the rivets anyway. One drum was oval so I've replaced that, and I had a set of proper wide shoes in stock so set about fitting them. That's the problem: the backplates will only accept the thin ones, which is perhaps why they fitted them? The middle spine of the shoe wants to sit in line with the outer edge of the hole the adjuster sits in. Soooo it looks like VW Heritage do backplates for £33 quid each that appear to come with the adjuster holder as a unit. They only do one size for '67 on so I assume that they'll solve the problem? Or has anybody got a usable second hand set that they want to sell? :D

letterman7
10-05-2009, 04:19 PM
Sounds like they've fitted a Type 3 rear set of drums, Alex. Secure a set of T3 plates and shoes, and you'll be good to go. Everything should bolt straight up.

Peter
10-05-2009, 05:16 PM
Or stuff discs on. there are some on ebay.com for $50, (110386675356) so even with shipping, cheap. no?

Alzax3
16-05-2009, 09:22 PM
Sorted - picked up a nice shiny new set of the correct backplates, together with a couple of sets of rear bearing seals and the whole thing just went straight back together as the good Dr intended..... I EVEN splashed out on a cable shortening kit so I can finally adjust the cable length - the car came with the two cables wrapped round the handbrake and held with the brass fittings from a couple of electric chop-blocks :shock: Since the system 'worked' I replaced the chop-blocks with 4 chandlers yacht-rigging cable clamps, but It's about time I did it properly :whistling: AND the kits only cost £10 :groupwave:

bushboy
16-05-2009, 10:00 PM
and your brake light switch is still hand operated????????

bushboy

Alzax3
17-05-2009, 07:37 AM
New master cylinder, so auto switch back to normal, though I think I'm going to make the temporary fix permanent, being able to jab a button to put on the brake lights momentarily is a great way to deter tail-gaters :twisted: (and safer than dabbing the brake pedal....)

jimcub
17-05-2009, 11:18 PM
I used to have 50 watt reversing lights on my land rover, that did the trick for tail-gaters.

Nic
19-05-2009, 06:27 PM
I used to have 50 watt reversing lights on my land rover, that did the trick for tail-gaters.

I've considered doing the same thing, wiring up a switch to the reverse lights for the nasty tail gating buggers.

Alzax3
19-05-2009, 08:17 PM
Having just connected everything up and bled it out, I'm thinking that the brakes were under par right from the start (four years now!) - not just the undersize rear shoes, but a weakly functioning master cylinder as well. Not so bad that it didn't pass the MOT, just not spot-on. Now I've just got to strip back the old and brittle underseal so that I can repaint the underside of the pans, and trace the annoying earth fault on the oil gauge circuit......