With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

rollin, rollin, rollin...

2008 May 02 22:21

When we last left our hero, he was working on the wheel bearings and brakes in his Volkswagenbeetle. The brakes have had a bit of a setback, but the bearings are coming along swimmingly.

Here is how the car sat while I went to Scotland, having just started dis-assembling the left rear wheel bearing assembly:

This time, the parts came out of the bearing assembly much more easily,

and they all got soaked in mineral spirits

over night.

The outer, roller bearing on the left rear of the car is a different type than the ones I've seen before. The rollers, instead of being held by a metal cage, are held in place by a plastic-like retainer. The retainer's job is just to keep the rollers from hitting each other, so it's soft enough that you can bend it a pull the rollers out, as seen here:

I guess maybe this is the original style that came with the car?

One of the things that put the brakes on the list of things to maintain/repair when I got the car is that most of the brake adjusting stars were stuck. As it turns out, 6 of them were fairly cruddy, and the two remaining were rusted solid. Here are all the adjusters that will go back in the car, about ready to get an overnight soaking. There are six orgininals and two new adjusters (the two shiny brass-colored knobs are new ones).