Perhaps living in California has spoiled me in this regard, but even in
situations where the drums and hubs have been together for a long, long time
I've managed to remove the drums from the hubs without going to Herculean
effort.  Certainly less effort than removing and them installing a nut to
500Nm, particularly since I don't have the tools to do this in the first
place.

I've always found that judicious use of a 3 lb. sledge around the
circumference of the flat face of the drum will eventually break the
"sticktion" that builds up between the drum and the hub.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Young                       '81 Vanagon
Lafayette, CA 94549         '82 Westfalia
---------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Connolly" <john@AIRCOOLED.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2003 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: Rear Brakes

> while I do agree you can do it, it is a lot easier to remove the drum and
> hub. Sometimes trying to remove the drum from the hub is a SOB. Kinda'
like
> changing the generator in a beetle in the engine bay. You CAN do it but
it's
> easier to just yank the engine first.
>
> John
> Aircooled.Net Inc.
>
> > >The myth that one needs to remove the axle nut to do the rear brakes is
> one
> > >that's been repeated in just about every manual I've seen.  Even the
> > >Bentley, while not explicitly saying so, suggests this it true.  Well,
> it's
> > >not.
> >