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Old March 19th 06, 01:44 PM posted to rec.autos.makers.vw.watercooled
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Default Parking brake/Rear drum sticking on Rabbit

On 2006-03-02, 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.


Hi everybody,
Here is my followup. I'm sure this will make me seem pretty
ridiculous to most of you. But I want to tell everybody what I found
out in case anybody ever has a similar situation. When I actually
started taking the right rear wheel apart yesterday morning, here is
what I found. The guy that I bought the car from last December had
all new brakes put in (or perhaps did it himself -- don't know for
sure). But, whomever did it likes to over tighten things. My first
clue was I needed a cheater pipe to loosen the lug nuts! Then after
getting the rear drum opened up, every thing looked great. The brakes
looked fine and weren't stuck. The hand brake cable wasn't sticking
at all. As it turns out the nut that holds the outer wheel bearings in
was WAY TOO TIGHT! We repacked them with grease and put everything back
together, following the directions in the Muir manual, and the wheel now
spun freely, and still not rocking back and forth at the various clock
positions. I put the tire back on and the grinding noise is gone. I
wish I had thought of this originally when I noticed that the wheel
wasn't spinning freely.
So, moral of the story when doing car repairs: FOLLOW RECOMMENDED
TORQUE SPECS!!! :-)

Cheers,
Bryan




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