Thanks again to all those who replied! The brakes have been set free thanks
to some sledge hammer ingenuity and reverse driving, and i took the beast
for a dance around the block, and it ran exactly as expected. The brake
light remained on after the parking brake was freed and i discovered it was
low on brake fluid. A leak will have to be found after the holiday. As for
now, i'm escaping this land of frozen brake drums, to head south for a week
or so in Florida! Enjoy your holidays everyone!

-Craig
'85Gl

On Dec 20, 2007 6:51 AM, Karin Baker & Raymond Paquette <
raymondpaquette@gmail.com> wrote:

> That happened to me with my '71 bus.  I could not break the clutch disk
> loose, had to take out the engine (luckily only about 15 minutes work on
> the
> old busses), remove the pressure plate and whack the clutch disk hub to
> break it free.
>
> Raymond
>
> On 12/19/07, Keith Ovregaard <kovregaard@comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > > I never expected brakes to rust up in 2 weeks.
> >
> > I've had 'em freeze up in 2 or 3 days. All it takes is moisture on
> > the rear brake shoes and a little time to rust the suckers to the
> > drum. Last time it happened to my van, it would not break loose using
> > granny gear (it's a Syncro) or reverse, so I took off one of the rear
> > wheels to give the drum a few whacks. It happened to be the stuck
> > one, so problem solved.
> >
> > By the way, this can happen to a clutch as well. Happened to a
> > friends old Saab that had been sitting in the misty winter weather
> > for a few weeks. Neighbors must have thought we were nuts driving
> > around in 1st gear trying to break that thing loose!
> >
> >
> > Keith O
> >
> > PS BenT: Got a block to ignite for Burning Van yet?
> >
>