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Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes
I took off the decroded piece of crap front brakes and put in new stuff up there. It ain't so bad! Now, I just need to bleed the front and back one more time, just to be safe, and adjust the back ones, and all mechanical stuff will sort of be fixed I think.!
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I was going to offer this earlier, but I thought I read you already rebuilt both front and rear brakes? i've been through this on a few vw's that had been sitting, the latest was a month ago, my '62 bug that has been sitting in the backyard since 2000.
You probably already tackled this, but in case you have not, here goes:
What goes bad is the wheel brake cylinders freeze up from corrosion. The DOT3 brake fluid absorbs water, the moisture droplets collect and fall to the bottom, start to rust the inside of the cylinder bores, and generally freeze up. If you catch it early, you just remove all four wheel cylinders and hand hone them with a brake cylinder hone in a drill motor. Sometimes the pistons break up while trying to get them apart, or the corrosion pits are too deep and the hone doesn't clean up the bore enough, in which case $20ea at your import auto supply store cures the problem.
Drums: All I do with rusty drum surfaces is hand sand 'em with 80gt. sand paper. It doesn't repair anything previously wrong (worn out from being serverely grooved, out of round, oversized) but it returns them to about the same condition they were in the day it was parked.
I also pull the brake shoe adjuster star wheels and nuts apart, wire brush off the gunk and corrosion, lightly grease them, and re-instal. If the detent springs are broken off, you need to replace them. Be sure to torque the rear drums to 215+ ft lbs and use a new cotter pin. I've had a drum and wheel fall off before... it was a bad day!
The rubber brake lines go bad, resulting in one or more wheels locking up int he brake on position, or refusing to brake at all. Luckily they are cheap to replace.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes
The whole centering issue is bothering me. Maybe I'll wait for it to make noises, and then I'll remove both the transmission and motor, and do something about it. I don't know what though. haha!
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Centering any adapter is really a precision machinist, but hey, sometimes a guy does what he has to do. If the consesus within the EV community is to just get it close and don't worry about it, then the risk is small, go for it.
On the other hand, if I were making my own plate, was going to take the time to make a high mileage EV and didn't have machine tools or the skills, I might contract with a small machine shop. I'd take them my plate, transaxle, and electric motor, and have them mount them for me. The factory VW bellhousing has been machined, about 5mm deep, counterbore. This pretty large diameter counterbore is concentric with the input shaft bearing, VW uses that to (center) the engine to the transaxle input shaft. If it were me, I might have my my adater plate precision machined do the same.
A good resource for VW adapters is Kennedy Engineered Products in Palmdale, CA. They sell all sorts of ICE adapters for VW transaxles and could likely build you one to fit your electric motor, or sell you a blank plate with a centered hole already in it. The old man who started the company is a kick to talk to. good luck with your cool project!