[Bsilver]

Hey all, I recently did a general inspection of my vehicle which has been sitting in the Bangalore rains for quite some while, since it is parked outside for most of its life. This applies for the Polo/Vento/Rapid/Ameo as well.

The brakes needed bleeding as the pedal was spongy and the vehicle needed an oil change as well. I usually work on this vehicle on my own, and decided to carry out the repairs. This is not just a DIY, but also the highlights the difficulties that come when you are doing such jobs on your own and the methods to tackle them.

Tools required:
1. Jack stands
2. Spanner, both ring and open Nos: 7/17/10
3. T30 torx bit
4. Brake clean
5. L handle/breaker bar
6. 30mm 12 point socket (preferable hardened)
7. Pry Bar 16 to 25 inches

Special tools required: (If got stuck)
1. Slide Hammer
2. Angle Grinder
3. Hammer Drill
4. A few M14 bolts (hardened) along with set of washers and nuts.

Procedure:

• Firstly find a level ground and park the vehicle.

• Secure the vehicle with a stone blocks at the front wheel, so that there is no movement, preventing accidents.

• Jack the vehicle, and lift it to a height where you can rotate the rear wheels. Your handbrake will not be engaged during this procedure and hence be careful about the vehicle moving and secure it.

• Before removing anything, remove the hub cap, and use the 30mm 12 point socket along with a breaker bar to remove the hub nut. These can be rusty and extremely difficult to remove, so soak it in some penetrating fluid. WD40 helps with this.

• Once this nut is broken loose, do not remove the nut completely. Now once the wheel is out and there is no load on the hub, you can completely remove the nut.

• Using a rubber hammer, or a hammer itself, tap the drum, so that this will loosen the brake dust and it will help once you are taking the drum out.

• To take the drum out, you need to release the adjuster inside of the drum, through the bolt holes, see for the fish type adjuster and push it towards the top, and this will release the drum by bringing the brake lines away from the drum. An image of this fish eye is here for reference:

• Once, this is done pull out the brake drum and you will have the brake assembly available for repairs.

• Do not meddle with the brake assembly, or do not attempt to remove it without removing the hub first. This was the mistake done by me, and leading to a lot of difficulties later on.

Image here:

• Soak the nut in penetrating fluid and then leave for a while, try to hit it with a hammer and then remove. If you are lucky enough it will come in the first attempt. But for me, things were lot different.

The hub nut had not been removed from quite a few years and was fully rusted and jammed on the axle. Adding to the thing that the car is parked outside, making it experience rains, the matter just turned worse.[/list]

• The video's online show that it can be taken of without any tools, but that is not the case in reality sometimes. I tried a lot, before resorting to other methods.

• If you are not able to take out the hub easily, there is high proximity, that you will end up with a damaged hub for the sake of taking out. You will be needing a long M14 bolt fully threaded and hardened to get this job done, and a set of washers and nuts for the same. Nut size is 22mm Hex. Just ask the hardware guy to give fitting nuts for the bolt.
  
• Important: The threading on the hub is called fine/smooth thread. Do not get a normal thread and try to put the bolt, you will end up damaging the threading, get the correct one, and for reference take one of the bolts of the wheel along with you.

• Try to thread the bolt in first, then thread in the nut along with a washer, washer should face the the inside of the hub, then thread in and find a level surface, which will be pushing the axle. Once you find, continue to thread it in, this will push against the axle surface, and the nut will push against the hub. Do this at different spots so that it comes out easily, and do not use too much of a force as well. Breaker bar force is more than enough. I tried to overtighten the bolts since my hub was not even moving, then when it was time to loosen, the threads did not even turn and the bolt was stuck leaving me with a stuck bolt, and a hub which needed rethreading or replacement.

At this time I thought to bit the bullet, but then I could not move the car anywhere as I could not get the wheel back on due to the stuck bolt. It was heavily rusted over 5+ years easily.

I then used an angle grinder to cut of the bolt from both the front of the hub and from the behind. This way I could get the wheel back on and take it to a mechanic shop. After cutting the bolt, still I was not able to align the wheel with the hub as it was bent, and I just lost my cool this time.

I just thought that anyways the hub needs to be replaced, I bought a long sledge hammer, and a pry bar from the hardware, then smacked the hub out without any mercy, still no progress. After about 2 hours of trying it finally came out and was totally rusted. Initially the stuck bolt could be drilled out as well, but I anyways needed to replace the hub.
Image here:

Image of the cut bolt which I tried to use for taking out the hub.

• Once everything is out, then clean the drum brake assembly with brake cleaner, and then wipe clean. The brake lining fasteners go in the same way they come out. The parking brake adjuster pin needs to be attached to the parking cable, the 2 small springs along with the retaining clips and the stud go in each on one brake lining. For this put the stud from the back of the drum and then put the springs, and then use the retaining clips to tight and secure. Image of spring fasteners here:
  

• The big spring with both twisted ends goes on the down holes which are there, not the first small distance holes, the ones on the bottom of these, the holes in reference are the 2 holes far apart. Image here for reference. It is best to put this spring at the last as it will hinder in the setting up of the lining on the brake cylinder. The adjuster mechanism has 2 springs, the larger one goes behind the adjuster and the smaller one with one open end and one hooked end goes on the front. The auto adjusting fish eye will be connected from the fish eye itself to the bottom hole, top of the bottom spring.
  

• Now after all this the assembly needs to be put on the brake cylinder. Use a new cylinder if the existing one has developed leaks, for this you need to undo the bolt behind the drum brake assembly and the bolt is a 10mm. Undo this and the cylinder along with the bleed nipple will come out and then replace with a new one in the reverse order. Then fit the brake lining back, and then comes the hardest part which is putting back the tension spring at the bottom.
  
  
  
  You may need to take a break, as this is really hard to put in. use all the force, locking pliers will help and then connect the spring to the holes which are told in the above description. Once this all is done, give it a thorough clean and then fit back the brake drum.

• Fasten the T30 and then adjust the handbrake from inside, this requires opening up a trim piece in the center console, and then use a 10mm to tighten the nut, ring spanner helps here, adjust to 2 clicks. When doing this procedure the handbrake should be disengaged. Once done check whether 2 clicks or 3 clicks is firm.

Few tips:
Before removing anything, make sure you are keen that you will be able to out back the stuff as it was. Springs are extremely notorious and especially the drum ones can be tensioned to high loads, and the problem is not the removal, but the refit. A normal person would just not be able to do it without the help of special tools, and extreme force. So be careful as to not end up with a vehicle which cannot be moved due to wrong repairs.

For anyone thinking that we can just put back the wheel without the lining and then take it to the shop, you are wrong. The cylinder will break within few pumps of the brake pedal and will allow all the brake fluid to leak out, leaving you with 0 brakes. This is a misconception that, the other 3 brakes will work.

The cylinder will blow because it has no obstruction and will start to leak fluid directly from the ,aster cylinder. So be really careful, that you will put back as it is.

Take a picture of the assembly and a thorough video, as if you forget where the springs go.

If you are not confident, do not DIY this part. It is extremely tedious job and you will end up with hand pain for a few days.

Hope this helps, and this is applicable for the PQ25 platform, Polo/Vento?rapid/Ameo/Fabia, with little to minor differences.

Happy Motoring!

[Jeroen]

Nice job, thanks for,sharing.


On the various brakes I have worked you can change out all brake component without having to remove the hub. Why did that not work for you?

There is a reason for not removing the hub too. The hub on most assemblies locks the bearing in place! So if you take it off, you need to adjust the bearing afterwards!

Did you replace both the hub and the bearing I assume?

On most hubs these bearing require special attention for mounting. Different cars/makes have different process. But in most cases the bearing is loaded up to the correct torque in two different steps. I have seen cases where it’s done by a torque wrench and cases where the nut gets tightened and retightened by measuring the rotation angle.

On many cars those hub nuts are torqued up pretty tight. On my Jeep up to 350 Nm. So I had to borrow a torque wrench as mine only goes up to 200-250Nm.

Even without rust, they tend to put up a big fight before they come loose. A good powerful impact wrench helps. Also, soaking them the night before with a rust penetrating fluid.

Jeroen

[Bsilver]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

On the various brakes I have worked you can change out all brake component without having to remove the hub. Why did that not work for you?

The connecting link for the adjuster, along with the handbrake element are behind the hub, a little twisting and turning would have helped out, but to reinstall it back would become hard. The handbrake cable is behind the lining, and the hub comes in between when connecting the cable back, which is already having some compression, making it harder for one to put it back on.

Anyways removing the hub will give a lot more room to work on with ease, and I had to change the bearing too, hence needed to remove the hub mandatorily.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Did you replace both the hub and the bearing I assume?

Yes, the hub and the bearing come as an assembly already pressed in by the manufacturer and is a sealed unit. Yes they need to be torqued down to 175Nm. I used a torque wrench for this job, but in case pf the front wheel bearing an additional angle of 90 degrees is required. I will be needing to replace the front lower arm bushings in a while as well, so a DIY upcoming on that.

[TopLiveCentre]

[quote=Bsilver;5865206] The rear brake job should be attempted without having to take off the hub assembly as taking it off can affect its integrity. The pain in the hands, enjoyable in hindsight. Did you bleed your brakes? Very important.

[Bsilver]

Originally Posted by TopLiveCentre

Did you bleed your brakes? Very important.

Yes, I did bleed the brakes twice, once you change out the cylinder, usually one bleed job would not help. So did it twice for all corners.

Taking out the hub makes things a lot easier, as told earlier the adjuster element is in its way of the hub, making it extremely hard to firstly install the springs, and they are holding a lot of tension force as well. A good reinstall will not affect it much, it comes along with the bearing, a bit of copper grease ensures it comes out smoothly the next time. My job not only required to remove the hub, I needed to change the hub as well due to a shot bearing.

Happy Motoring!