Trabant Tech Forum

[USER=760]@mbeamish[/USER]
Thanks, I did understand what you said about the different hubs and that one type needs a puller and the other type does not. I was very busy last night and didn't get the chance to check the nut size. My experience of the splined driveshafts on our VW buses is you still need apply considerable force to get them off the splined shaft. Usually few blows with a big hammer to break the "lock" before you can get the driveshafts to start moving.

Temperatures have dropped to -11'c last night. Whatever tools I end up needing to get my Trabant hubs off, it is going to be a bit nippy in the garage tent...

I got both types of pullers.
But the old type couldn't pull my old style hubs off, so I had to use the newer type.

There was a lot of tension on the hubs before they budged. The car hasn't been touched since at least 1994.

Is there some sort of taper on the older hubs/driveshafts?

The old hubs are tapered, with a notch (?) for the puller.
The old style hubs are also a bit tapered, but they are also more flat, missing the notch for the puller, these are pulled by the wheels studs.

Picture of the new and old style puller; http://forum.trabitechnik.com/gallery/9_from_1245928935.jpg

OK now I understand why they can be hard to get off Especially if the last person to remove and refit the hubs was a bit of a muppet and they decided to tighten the hub nuts up extra tight to make sure the nuts wouldn't come loose (that or they didn't have a torque wrench so had to guess).

Looks like my gas burner might be needed. Maybe a spell of properly cold weather will help too.

If I recall correctly, the hub nut is to be tightened with 130Nm. Mine were a pain to get off. Used a 36mm extended with a 32 mm wrench

Another tip new trabant cylinders can quickly seize again if car is left standing. Dismantle the new cylinders and give bores and pistons a smear of 'red rubber grease' for a longer life. I imagine you can find a similar rubber grease in Norway

36mm hub nuts. I think Biltema sell brake rubber grease. Not that I plan to leave the Trabant standing for long unless we get a spell of sub -20'c temperatures. It needs to pass its "MOT" before the end of January for starters.

Dyane paintwork done for now, reassembly started. Then I start the drivers side on Monday. The thermometer on the front of the house was showing -17'c when I finished for the night.

One more question. Are the hub nuts handed or do all screw off anticlockwise?

The nuts are regular, righty tighty, lefty loosey

As in breaker bar to the left of the nut, pull up to loosen, breaker bar on the right of the nut, pull to tighten o_O

In Norway we use the German definition "links" (left) for counter-clockwise threads
The hub nuts are not links

It's not just a Bergen thing then, Hansestadt and all that?

I thought it had something to do with the difference between growing before or growing up after the invention of the digital watch.

Well, maybe both!
I'm 23, so definitely grown up after the wall fell :-P

Well thanks to Comrade Norwegen, who popped over from Bergen on Saturday, 'bants 'bant now has a new set of wheel cylinders and brake shoes. I still have to bleed the front brakes and torque up the hub nuts and then I can take it for a test run. I am hoping that the test drive does not turn up any problems. Although some uncharacteristically mild weather (leading to thick sheet ice on minor roads) will make testing the brakes interesting. Despite winding off the hand brake cable adjuster the rear brakes still feel a bit stiff. I can turn the wheels but they bind more than I would like.

The brakes are actually quite easy to work, no worse than a Mini or the rear brakes on an old VW bus. The nuts hub were not too tight and the first three hubs came off easily. It looks like someone had greased the tapers the last time the hubs were off. The last hub came off with a small ping although both it and the puller stayed on the shaft. A 3/4" breaker bar and a 1.5m extension pipe made light work of both the hub nuts and puller. One rear cylinder had obviously leaked, stripping most of the paint from the inside of the back plate and all the other brakes had that "I have just started leaking ever so slightly" dampness on the shoes. I was really surprised how little rust there was on all the nuts and brake lines. They could well have been replaced at some point in the last few years though. The back plates are also made of good thick steel. Trabants are just well built little cars. The hardest part of the job was getting the nuts that hold the wheel cylinders on. It took a while on one of the back cylinders and I gave up on the lower RHS wheel cylinder and let Comrade Norwegian do that one.

One tip, if you have had a leak from the brakes, make sure you separate the drum from the hub and check the mating surfaces before putting everything back together. When I did that I found a fair bit of brake fluid trapped between the surfaces and cleaned it all off. It is easy to separate the hub and drum, just remove the small locating screw, put the unit on the ground with the wheel studs facing upwards and hit the centre boss with a rubber hammer until the hub drops.