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Post by tony on Feb 1, 2016 11:22:01 GMT -8
Hi Eric, I am glad you found the site! Eric is the son of our previous tenant. He is an 8 year old kid from China, and a car fanatic! Hope you enjoy looking around the site and see what all the Volkswagen people are up to! Phew good disclaimer , I was wondering there for a minute!!
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Post by Volktales on Feb 3, 2016 21:08:50 GMT -8
Ok, back to the Ghia and time to install the brake backing plates and bearing retainer caps. That should be straight forward, shouldn't it??? Uh, no.
Here are the contents of the bearing seal kit. This was ordered from CIP (thanks Brent), and I chose the much higher priced best quality option. It turns out to be from VEWIB and appears to be significantly higher quality then the cheapo version. For the price differential it had better be... Take note of the big o-ring in the picture. It's placement has been known to confuse people...
These are two different styles of bearing retainer caps that I had available to me. The left type is in the original 1964 design; the right is from the 1972 swing-axle. That big "washer" in front of the '72 style is actually an oil deflector and it's installation will be shown later... Basically the difference in the two styles is how a potential oil leak is dealt with... The wheel bearings in swing-axle transmissions are lubricated with oil from the transmission itself which is free to travel from the transmission through the swing-axle tubes, into the bearings. A conventional oil seal stops the oil from leaking out. But if it did spring a leak, where would the oil go? VW knew that a leak is entirely possible, and they did not want the oil to contaminate the brakes if a leak occurred. In early cars up to and including 1964, a complex oil deflector was installed on the backside of the brake drum. In the event of an oil leak, this deflector would direct the oil into a trough of sorts, which would channel it through a hole in the face of the brake drum, thus lubricating the backside of your hubcap nicely. And then spray it out all over the outside of your wheel! Definitely not something I want to happen to my beloved wide whitewalls!!!
A moot point in my case, because the fancy oil deflectors were long gone anyways... I hoped to use the "improved" design, as featured in 1965 and later models. VW changed the bearing cap design, and used a much simpler deflector washer instead. Now the oil was deflected through a small hole in the brake backing plate, and the leaking oil would drip out the back, where at least you could hide the fact your VW was having incontinence issues... This later design is what I hoped to use...
At first glance it would seem the two housings could be interchanged. The weep hole is clearing visible on the later housing to the right. A small corresponding hole would have to be drilled in the backing plate, but this would be no big deal. The extra overall thickness of the housing is not a problem either, as the inner surface of the brake drum has adequate clearance. Then I realized the step where the wheel bearing sits in is machined to a shallower depth. Damn!
With the bearing in place, you can easily see this is not going to work. More on this later...
The same seal kit is used for both designs. The seal is installed on the outside, on the earlier style to the left. The later style on the right requires the deflector to be place in the housing first from the backside, then the seal installed from the backside.
This is what the late type would look like IF I could install it on this project...
More to come shortly...
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Post by Volktales on Feb 3, 2016 21:57:38 GMT -8
Time to put it together. This diagram shows the later type. The assembly for early and late is the same, except #13 the oil deflector washer is not used on 1964 and earlier models. The placement of #8, the large O-ring, confuses some folks...
Here is that same #8 O-ring placed inside the bearing cap. It fits there perfectly, so that is where it goes, right? NO!!, IT DOES NOT GO THERE!! If you install it there, you WILL create yourself a big fat oil leak...
This picture shows the placement of the small washer, O-ring, and outer spacer. You can clearly see the slight groove that the oil seal has made on the outer spacer over the last five decades...
This pictures shows the housing gasket with the correct placement of the #8 large O-ring over top of it. You have to stretch the O-ring slightly to install it there. Incidentally the second paper gasket in the seal kit is not used. It may seem like it should be installed on the back of the brake backing plate in the picture, but the internal diameter of the gasket is not correct for this usage. They way in which the O-ring and gasket seals are used, makes a gasket on the backside unnecessary.
Here is what the original early type bearing retainer looks like installed. Note that the deflector washer from the late type housing is sitting loose on the shaft. It is not used on the early style, but will fit there and act as a very thin spacer if required. I thought I would have to leave it like this and just hope it would not leak in the future. And then I started browsing The Samba...
It turns out there was a solution to this problem after all... It seems that there are three styles of bearing retainer caps that VW used... The 1964 and earlier type is shown on the left. The middle one is an intermediate type used from 1965 to 1967. The one on the right is 1968 and later for use with "long" axle shafts and 4-lug drums.
From the back, the early type obviously has no weep hole. The other two don't look much different from this angle...
This angle shows the difference in machining the step for the wheel bearing. The left one is the same depth as the early style, while the right is not...
The left "intermediate" style is a bit taller when viewed from the outside.
So this is what I need to use... Two 1965-1967 style bearing retainer caps. Combine these with a small hole drilled in the backing plate, and I will be good to go. There is only one slight problem. I only have one of these caps! This one came off of a 1966 parts car I scrapped years ago. Originally I had them both, but I think one ended up on a customer's car years ago... Does anyone have one??? The part number is 311 501 311. Yes it is a type 3 part number, but these were used on Beetles too. For now I stole the bearing caps off my long suffering '66 Beetle that has been resting in pieces for the last 25 years. Next up is to install these caps, and paint the axle tubes and brake backing plates... What fun this has been...
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Post by PICTUP on Feb 4, 2016 10:59:19 GMT -8
Excellent and informative write up/photos Russ.
Once you figured out the mid to late year difference, did you have to reuse the seal that looks to have already been installed on the early style? Is it possible to reuse a seal once in place(i.e. remove and reinstall….doesn't to my inexperience seem possible, let alone a good idea)? Also, how does one instal a seal on the mid and late style, being that there isn't an exposed flat face that faces the installer?
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Post by Volktales on Feb 4, 2016 12:13:30 GMT -8
I was able to carefully remove that seal and will use it in the different housing. The later housings require the seal to be installed from the back side. You must use some sort of driver that fits it very precisely. I have used old wheel bearing races in the past. Sometimes you can use the old seal as a driver for the new seal as well... Lots of fun!
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Post by CrazyBrit on Feb 4, 2016 17:57:20 GMT -8
Hi Russ. I have one that you can have.
If I'm down that way tomorrow, I'll drop it off at Bavarian, if your boss would be cool with that, or I can bring bring to Tim's on Tuesday.
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Post by Volktales on Feb 4, 2016 20:55:25 GMT -8
You actually have one of those? That would be great, Mark. It would be no problem if you dropped it off at the shop, or Tuesday would be fine too. Thanks, Russ.
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Post by Brenticon on Feb 4, 2016 21:06:46 GMT -8
Great post .... Gotta luv community!
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Post by CrazyBrit on Feb 4, 2016 21:21:45 GMT -8
A left over spare from my failed straight axle conversion.
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Post by tony on Feb 4, 2016 21:36:06 GMT -8
Mark , per chance you also had a failed 356 engine install??
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Post by CrazyBrit on Feb 5, 2016 8:10:33 GMT -8
No, I haven't started that project yet.
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Post by PICTUP on Feb 5, 2016 11:14:19 GMT -8
A left over spare from my failed straight axle conversion. I seem to recall that your conversion actually worked, no? If it did, I wouldn't call that "failed"….. you just decided not to keep it that way
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Post by CrazyBrit on Feb 5, 2016 16:47:40 GMT -8
I suppose that it did. It just didn't meet my standards. I really didn't like the idea of not being able to change a tyre if I had a puncture
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Post by Volktales on Feb 5, 2016 17:09:44 GMT -8
Thanks for the bearing cap, Mark! Just what I needed. Hope to get these installed and some paint on this weekend.
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Post by CrazyBrit on Feb 5, 2016 18:15:00 GMT -8
You're welcome. I'm looking forward to seeing your Ghia back on the road!
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