Crappy Rear Beams Grrrr

[M@tt 77]

As weather wasn't too bad today i decided i'd have a crack at sorting out the dodgy rear beam on my ebay CTI £166 mega bargain.

 

The drivers side was incredibly low which meant either some tool had made a crap effort at setting the ride height previously or it was in a bad shape, i was hoping for the former but you guessed it turned out to be the latter

The ride height

 

So i set about removing the rear beam from the car this meant first of all disconnecting the brake lines which went suprisingly well considering the solid to flexi connectors looked quite rusty. CTI 0 vs Matt 1

 

I then had to remove the exhaust backbox so that i can pull the beam over the end of the middle section. The exhaust was a sleeve fitment type which took loads of persuading to seperate involving wiggling, hitting, banging, swearing , wd40 in that order. CTI 1 vs Matt 1

 

Next step was to remove the rear drums so that i could disconnect the handbrake cables allowing the beam to be removed. After removing the tryes and spending a while with a screwdriver poking through the wheel nut holes trying to flick back the pad lever i remebered i needed to remove the hub nuts, doh!!! thats why the drums werent coming off

 

Well the drivers side came off ok after removing the nut, so then it was onto the passenger side. Try as i might the drum would not come off!! i smacked the s*it out of it with a lump hammer so much so i think i've partially deafened myself in obne ear, finally it gave in and i was able to pull the drum off. I was convinced that the drum was worn and that there was a lip on it and the pads were catching and hence not allowing the drum to come off but on inspection part of the wheel bearing was stuck solid to the shaft and hence why it was so hard to remove. I actually had to bust the bearing apart to be able to remove the drum.

Remainder of Bearing

 

Great so thats a new drum with bearing i need assuming i can get the remainder of the bearing off the trailing arm shaft!,. if not new trailing arm shaft as well. CTI 2 vs Matt 1

 

So that pain in the arse over i moved onto dismantling the beam. The beam came off the car fine and i set about undong all the necessary bits so that i could knock the trailing arm shafts out. I took my time and made sure everything was cleaned with wire brush and sprayed with penetrating oil first before attempitng to undo anything. Fortunately everything came undone very easily things were looking up. I started on the passenger side and a few whacks of the lump hammer saw the passenger side shaft easily come out and on inspection it didn't look too bad at all. Very very minor indentations on the surface, definately a candidate for a 180 degree rotation fix.

 

It was then onto the drivers side which had had the dodgy ride height. The side appeared to be seized solid which i'd been dreading. I whacked and whacked, swore ,whacked , swore some more and finished with some more whacking until the trailing arm eventually appeared to move . Hooray i thought, i continued smaking until the the trailing arm came away and i found that the shaft was still left in the tube!!! no amount of hitting or swearing was getting that bad boy out of there so the tube has now been consigned to scrap and i'm now on the hunt for a new beam, a half decent trailing arm and possibly a passenger trailing arm if i can't get the remaining part of the bearing off the shaft.

Stuck Shaft

not bad considering i think you need at least 2 tonnes of pressure to press them out!! I now have a right arm like popeye!

 

The Ebay super bargain is not looking like such a bargain after all bag of wank!! CTI 3 vs Matt 1

 

On a plus note i did manage to fit a set of miles' alloy gear rods to henrys skip including a bit of customised bending of the long rod to get round his CAT with out buggering it up

[madmat 0]

What else would you like to do on a saturday looks like your having fun.

 

hows the other 205 after the incident/accident

[M@tt 77]

yeah i could have been dragged round meadowhall picking out stuff for the wedding so i think i got the better end of the deal

 

My Mi16 is all back and runnign fine now Although she still needs a decenty clean inside and out as she has loads of polishing compound in the gaps on the outside on the loads of dust on the inside from being in the workshop with the sunroof open.

 

might do that tomorrow if i get the chance

[mitch205gti 1]

Sounds like you had fun!

I've got it all to come, my Pug has been off the road for a couple of years and now were moving work I need to get it back on the road.

I'm pretty sure I will need a new beam too.

[Anthony 1,000]

Piece of advice for next time - it's much easier to just disconnect the handbrake cables from the back of the handbrake lever, rather than faffing about with the drums (in my opinion atleast)

[Rippthrough 98]

not bad considering i think you need at least 2 tonnes of pressure to press them out!! I now have a right arm like popeye!

 

 

Good practice for the prssure you need to put a new bearing in the drum then

 

-Phillip

[maxi 36 1 Cars]

Piece of advice for next time - it's much easier to just disconnect the handbrake cables from the back of the handbrake lever, rather than faffing about with the drums (in my opinion atleast)

 

 

I was just thinking the exact same thing....... 3 philips screws, 13mm nut and unhokk the cables all from the warmth of the car.

 

Maxi

[Alastairh 47]

Good effort. Saves going to the gym

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

On a plus note i did manage to fit a set of miles' alloy gear rods to henrys skip including a bit of customised bending of the long rod to get round his CAT with out buggering it up

Well Matt was all dirty and they only took seconds to fit too Cheers Matt!!!

[Alastairh 47]

Oooh dear Henry. Dirty Matt being bent over in your turbo'd cti engine bay popping your rod into places.

 

I feel sorry for the neighbours

[Edp 67 3 Cars]

This forum is full of 'em