Hi,

I'm having some trouble with fitting the front brake drums onto their backing plates - the drums themselves I believe are kdf ones (please see picture). Newer drums (circa 1960's) fit perfectly on the plates no problem, the 1940's type just about squeeze on. One spins but catches every 3/4 of a revolution, the other doesn't spin at all.

I have no tension on the cable and also the adjuster is right out to allow the brake plates to seat fully in.

Am I missing a trick? Are the linings on the brakes too thick perhaps? I've tried several set's on the plate, all similar results. I really have no idea!

If anyone has any idea's on what I can try then please give me a shout.

Appreciated as always,
Leon.

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Hi Leon,
I have a '49 Standard too although up to press I've never had the brakes in bits. Have you measured the internal diameter of both sets of drums and compared them? I know that with any brakes if the shoes aren't centred by even a small amount or retracted fully then the drum won't go over them but you seem to have covered that. Are the shoes new? Measure the thickness of the linings and compare them with VW specs. I got some shoes for my oval which were manufactured in China and although they did fit OK we know how quality can vary; maybe yours are a tad too thick?
Cheers,
Andy.

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go to google and type in cable brakes vw beetle the result at the top of the page should be from thesamba.com and is a view topic ref cable brake information. its a really good bit of info for you. i would check the pins on the troublesome side as they have to be different lenths and maybe you have two long on the side that wont wont , there should be one short and one long per drum as far as i know. this is also pointed out in this article. good luck Colin

Hi,

Thank you both for the replies and advice, much appreciated.

I have put some of your advice into practice and can now get the drum on and rotate it to a degree. I will continue to fine tune and get that extra mm to get it perfect.

The 60's drum has the same inner diameter as the split drum, very odd why one fitted better than the other. The drum shoes have original partially worn linings from the selection I have, all are approx 4mm thick.

The pins themselves are all of the same length unlike those in the Samba reference (could they be wrong!?!) - all pins that I have are from several different original standard backing plates. The actual shoe seats against the adjuster so the only way to get it to go a little further back would be to file the shoe edge where it meets the pin slot by a small amount - one option I may take as a last resort.

The only other thing that I'll need to do once I've sorted this out is to get some lug nut thread insert (time-sert?) put in as one of the drum hole bolt threadings has worn... Hopefully some garage can do this.

Thanks again, these old splits are definitely a labour of love!
Leon.

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Yes they are a labour of love, just had a nightmare of a few evenings removing and reinstalling the fuel pipe in the tunnel in my deluxe splits chassis. These early cars have many peculiar quirks which often drive me around the bend. You will get there, a bit of sand paper will trim them back enough for the drum to go on and they will bed themselves in in no time. Good luck. Just heading out to nip up the handbrake cables on my floor before refitting the front axle. The joys of split beetle resto work.