CV Or Not CV?

Traveling in the company of those we love is home in motion.
Hunt

That is the question! Well, we have CVs again, all greased and fitted.

My friendly neighbour, as usual, generously gave up a few Wednesday evening hours to help out with the work. The CVs are all rotating lovely and quiet and smooth, like. Top job and I'm very happy.

I have been struggling for ages to remove the castle nuts from the wheel hubs in order to check out the rear brakes. So I lost my cool this afternoon and carved them up with an angle grinder. I have a pair of replacements on the white bus's rear axle, left over from the big chop. I'll just have to get those off without the grinder :).

The rear brakes on both sides seem to be in remarkably good condition considering that they have been living outdoors for the past ten years without maintenance or protection from the weather. The rubbers are still soft and flexible and the cylinders are still clean and rust-free. There was a little milky brake fluid left inside the cylinders that seems to have repelled moisture and kept them slightly lubricated, good stuff. The brake shoes still have lots of friction material and will be good to use still. After cleaning off some dust and a little surface rust we reassembled it all and called it a night.

A good evening's work and, as usual, a nice social get-together with a few cold ones to lubricate the way. Thanks again to Marius for the advice, brains, tools and hard labour - cheers mate!


Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Grease Is The Word

To know you have enough is to be rich.
Lao Tzu

Thick, black, gooey stuff. We got clever this week and wore surgical gloves but we still managed to smear slimy lube all over the place. This could've been a lot more fun if Lynn was helping me!

I had a good look around for the correct replacement boots but couldn't find them, replica, pirate or otherwise. Strange really because Beetles and Kombis are still pretty thick on the ground - wonder where they get their bits? I managed to find some that seem to be intended for a later model, they're not identical but I'm gonna try and make a plan...

It took a bit of brute force and lubrication, these new rubbers are a tight fit, wooah. But I think that they'll work. We had to discard the metal cap as it is intended for a slightly larger joint. We packed loads of the black grease into the joints, and more and more until it squeezed right through the joint and out the back. Re-fitted the original crimped clamps where possible. One was damaged as they are not really meant to be re-used so I replaced it with a proper, screw-together clamp.

And there they are, completely assembled, greased and wrapped to keep them dust free in Lynn's best freezer bags :)

We'll fit them back onto Marigold on the next "work night".


Thanks for stopping by
CooP