removing front brake drums

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Graeme Langford
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removing front brake drums

#1 Post by Graeme Langford »

So I need to replace the front wheel bearings.
Is there a trick that I am missing to remove the front brake drums. The offside front drum came off with a little bit of effort but the nearside is proving a little more difficult.
The hub nut is off. The shoe adjusters are fully backed off. The road wheel is still on for a bit more pulling power and wobbling around as you would expect.
Any suggestions please
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1967 911S

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David Jones
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Re: removing front brake drums

#2 Post by David Jones »

Quite often the inner bearing hub will stick on the axle so you are trying to pull the bearing through the bearing seal. Pull harder.
If I had known I would live this long I would have pushed the envelope a little harder.
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Graeme Langford
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Re: removing front brake drums

#3 Post by Graeme Langford »

That is what it feels like David. The offside looks like it has been cleaned previously with some emory paper and has two dark coloured patches at 3 and 9 o'clock. We are thinking that maybe someone has used some red loctite to lock the bearing onto the shaft. My stub axles are the earlier type 25mm spindles
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Don Gale
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Re: removing front brake drums

#4 Post by Don Gale »

If you thought removing the drum was fun, wait until you try to remove the grease seal sleeve. I ended up fabbing a bearing splitter to replace them on my A spindles. You can get VW sleeves pretty cheap. I chucked the new ones in a lathe to polish the o.d. to remove what looks like pitting in the zinc plate.
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1958 356A 1600 Super Sunroof Coupe
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Jon Bunin
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Re: removing front brake drums

#5 Post by Jon Bunin »

Graeme Langford wrote: Sat Feb 24, 2024 2:52 pmIs there a trick that I am missing to remove the front brake drums... Any suggestions please.
This is what Porsche suggested...
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Don Gale
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Re: removing front brake drums

#6 Post by Don Gale »

DIY drum removal tools, limited only by your imagination:
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1958 356A 1600 Super Sunroof Coupe
former 1966 Euro 912 Sunroof
former 1978 Intermeccanica Speedster w/'68 912
Member Since 1983, #4039

"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be"

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Martin Benade
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Re: removing front brake drums

#7 Post by Martin Benade »

Don, I hope you haven’t had that many stuck drums to pull, and never saved the pullers you made.
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Don Gale
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Re: removing front brake drums

#8 Post by Don Gale »

Martin Benade wrote: Mon Feb 26, 2024 8:03 pm Don, I hope you haven’t had that many stuck drums to pull, and never saved the pullers you made.
HA! actually the 5th one down is mine (please don't look at the welds). I threw it together in about 20 minutes to remove my left rear drum. The splines were very snug on the axle which is a good thing.
drum_tool-05a.jpg
I wrestled a rear drum on my daughter's older Toyota 4Runner a few months before. I could not get the star wheel on the shoes to retract far enough to clear the wear ridge and probing by braille from the backside of the backing plate was useless. I ended up getting out my zip grinder and a sawsall and chisel to cut an opening in the drum to retract the frozen star wheel the rest of the way.

Edit: "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do"
Last edited by Don Gale on Tue Feb 27, 2024 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
1958 356A 1600 Super Sunroof Coupe
former 1966 Euro 912 Sunroof
former 1978 Intermeccanica Speedster w/'68 912
Member Since 1983, #4039

"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be"

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Paul S Zuchowski
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Re: removing front brake drums

#9 Post by Paul S Zuchowski »

Don, you made my day.

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Graeme Langford
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Re: removing front brake drums

#10 Post by Graeme Langford »

So we made up some angle brackets that we attached to the drum. Chains attached to the brackets coming out to a centre U bolt. Put a slide hammer on the U bolt and two hits and it came loose.
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Mike Wilson
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Re: removing front brake drums

#11 Post by Mike Wilson »

👍

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