MOT failure

[greydane]

Hi guys,
I used to be "Bluespear" here a while back but forgot my login details & changed email accounts, so have signed up again as a newb.

My 96/97 Ex failed MOT this week .....( couple of dodgy bulbs &) surprise, surprise - handbrake operating at 7%. My local garage is really good & cheap, so asked them to do the work.
So I went back to collect her yesterday to find that they couldn't get the wheels off !!!! It seems they have rusted on to the hubs and the guys tried all they could with release oil, leverage & vibrating the hub etc (without going to the point of damaging anything) before giving up on it.
Any suggestions ???
someone told me to slack off the wheel nuts a couple of turns & drive it around a bit - (sounds dodgy to me)
I was wondering if a few good whacks on the inside of the rim with a bfh might do it?

Gary

 

[kevin p]

Hi Gary, Try tightening the wheel nuts abit more to see if it will crack the rust. Or, get a length of 3x3 wood and a scissor jack between the stuck wheel and the opposite wheel. Put some tension between the 2 wheels with the jack. Get another piece of wood and hit the top of the stuck rim with a hefty hammer. You have got to shock the joint loose.
Hope this helps, Kev.

 

[greydane]

Thanks Kevin .... that worked a treat !!!
(i knew i'd find a use for that old fence post eventually.)

i can't for the life of me find my haynes book at the mo, so a couple of dumb questions :-

1/ wheels off & caliper removed, should the disc just pull off ??
cos mine are stuck solid - the only movement is the free play from the drive shaft. tried tapping all around the hub with bfh but made no difference & there's nothing there to lever against.

2/ does anyone know which way the star nut things rotate to adjust - i've been out there for hours & which ever way i turn them makes no difference.

3/ slightly irrelevant at this time, but i noticed there's an arm attached to the rr diff housing with a spring going upwards in front of the spare wheel ... at the point where the spring attaches to the arm something has sheared and has been cable tied together by someone .... what does it do, & is it important to fix it asap ?

TIA Gary

 

[jcasey007]

you will not get the discs off untill you have slackend the handbreak shoes off.

re the star adjusters, impossible to say which way slackens them off as they can be installed either way and of course as they are not handed, they will be opposite to each other on either side of the car.

If you have been at it for hours, I assume you have taken off the handbrake cable and made sure the lever is free to move (you may need to use a hammer)

 

[kevin p]

Can you use a similar technique as you did for the wheel? You might have to press the backplate onto the disc, but you could straighten it out afterwards.

 

[greydane]

.... ok, maybe not literally hours, but it felt that way in the wind & rain.

Run out of time & daylight now, so didn't get round to removing th discs, but I did manage to get some adjustment on the shoes. Handbrake was biting at 4 -5 clicks and holding ok on a slope at 7-8 clicks. It needs a lot more fettling & ideally a complete strip, clean, rebuild but if I can get the MOT passed I'll have plenty time later for that..

Thanks for the advice / info guys. Any ideas on this ....

3/ slightly irrelevant at this time, but i noticed there's an arm attached to the rr diff housing with a spring going upwards in front of the spare wheel ... at the point where the spring attaches to the arm something has sheared and has been cable tied together by someone .... what does it do, & is it important to fix it asap ?

Gary

 

[Ilikemice]

3/ slightly irrelevant at this time, but i noticed there's an arm attached to the rr diff housing with a spring going upwards in front of the spare wheel ... at the point where the spring attaches to the arm something has sheared and has been cable tied together by someone .... what does it do, & is it important to fix it asap ?

Gary

That'll be the air-ride suspension sensor. It has an arm with a ball joint on one end attached to a sensor that sits vertically and attaches to the diff housing. The one on mine had a dodgy ball joint so mine got cable-tied together too

 

[greydane]

That'll be the air-ride suspension sensor. It has an arm with a ball joint on one end attached to a sensor that sits vertically and attaches to the diff housing. The one on mine had a dodgy ball joint so mine got cable-tied together too

Ok, thanks for that - another job on the "not urgent" list.

 

[greydane]

Ok, i give up !!

So after all my "fun" last weekend, I put the ex in for re-test & left the car there all week for them to play with ....
N/S recorded 170 (whatever that means) - perfect apparently
O/S recorded 000 (clearly not good)
and the garage were too busy to do anything with it.
Today I've adjusted the star wheel in both directions as far as it will go - at no point was handbrake biting enough at 3 clicks to stop me turning the wheel by hand - and more frustrating, at no point was I able to get the disc off.
So I guess I'm a bit screwed.
I did consider removing the entire hub from the axle tube, but the 4 nuts at the back look so rusty/crudded up that I thought my cheap sockets would probably do more harm than good.

So apart from selling it to the local travellers, anyone got any brilliant ideas for me ???

 

[kevin p]

Get some new discs. Look at the thickness of them so you can judge how far to drill a series of holes in a straight line. Then get a cold chisel and try and crack a line through the holes.