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Old March 2nd 06, 08:00 PM posted to rec.autos.makers.vw.watercooled
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Default Parking brake/Rear drum sticking on Rabbit

Bryan K. Walton wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> I've got an '84 Rabbit L that I believe has a problem with the
> parking brake/rear drum on the right rear wheel. I purchased the car
> about two months ago and have noticed what sounds like a scratching
> sound (that I thought was coming from the front wheel). This led me
> to think I had a wheel bearing issue because the noise would vanish on
> a right turn. However, I replaced the front right wheel bearings this
> past weekend and this scratching sound has continued.
> After doing some more research last night with the rear wheels
> jacked up off the ground, the right rear wheel doesn't spin freely.
> With the parking brake off, the wheel will rotate, but only with me
> gripping it forcefully and rotating it by hand. The left rear wheel,
> to the contrary, spins freely. I only need to pull up the parking
> brake one click to prevent the right rear from moving at all.
> So, I loosened the right side parking brake cable (almost to
> the point where the 10mm nuts were about to come off the end) but this
> hasn't fixed my problem. Furthermore, I noticed on my drive into work
> today that if I gently tug on that right parking brake cable with my
> fingers while driving down the road, the scratching noise I hear
> changes in pitch.
> I'm feeling pretty confident that the problem is my parking
> brake. Is the parking brake mechanism completely independent of the
> regular rear drum braking system? Or is pushing in my brake pedal
> doing the same thing mechanically as pulling up on the parking brake.?
> Given that I have loosened the parking brake cable as much as I can, I
> don't think the problem is the cable being to tight, right? I'm
> guessing that something isn't adjusted correctly on the wheel.
>
> Thanks in advance for your reply.
> Bryan
>


I had a similar problem on my '84 GTI and it turned out to be the left
side parking brake cable was stuck in the housing (had the same issue
but on the left side.) Pull the RR drum and manually pull the e-brake
cable full loose, then see if the problem goes away. (obviously don't
use the e-brake until you've verified that the noise went away) You
will probably want to repack the bearings as VW rear wheel bearings are
marginal anyway and all that heat isn't good for the grease.

good luck

nate

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