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Rear beam replacement


benherron
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Does anyone know if I can swap a rear beam out quick keeping existing brake lines/drum etc?

 

My beam broke this morning at the bush mount. Unfortunately not back with the car until Tuesday night so can't stick my head under it and check what's what, but by the looks of the exploded diagrams I should be able to (in simplified form) unbolt stub axles, unclip handbrake cable, unclip brake lines off the beam. Drop axle down and refit in reverse. Adjust brakes and away I go..... however I'm going to guess someone is going to say it's not that simple. 

cheers in advanced

Ben

Edited by benherron
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Beam has cracked/separated on the front edge of cylinder that holds the bush.
Was on a speed bump actually, not fast or big, just rolled over it and heard a big thunk and then the scraping of the rear wheel on the arch.
I think I was very lucky it happened in a retail park not on the motorway.

Cheers for that, I had wondered if VW had routed the brakes through it, the technical drawings don't help in that respect. and I'll have to double check but I'm 99% sure my bogo spec rules out abs, I've certainly not seen it pop up on the dashboard.

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no completely standard, SDI.
Spent all of it's life in Swansea and based on the fact one corner of the rear bumper is currently held on by woodscrews, it's had a rear end bump at some point, so could've been a combination of that and salty air, plus the amount of miles I've put on it in the 6 months I've had it.

Edited by benherron
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Speak to Lee at X Hands Auto Spares, 07428 587 682 he'll have the parts and can probably guide you through it too or if want help to do it there's a good VW specialist called R-Tec in what was the Gower College' Motor Training Garage Kingsbridge, Gorseinon

01792 897575

 
Edited by weslangdon
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On 09/13/2016 at 7:37 AM, Skezza said:

Nice. Your car doesn't look lowered either so certainly something to watch for lol.

Yeah... Gosh, looking at that pic of the weld having completely separated is a tad worrying. Never seen anything like that before. I shall check both of my SDIs today!

 

Thanks for posting that pic. Please show us a few more once it is out... It'll help out loads of us here on the forum, so we'll know what to look for.

You're real lucky that that didn't happen at speed.

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Just had a look... I don't think your beam has failed. From the pic I think its just that the bush has dropped out. The ring that holds the bush in place at the end of the beam is still firmly attached. May be a quick fix, to simply push a new bush back in. Hammer and spanner required!

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6 minutes ago, mk2 said:

Just had a look... I don't think your beam has failed. From the pic I think its just that the bush has dropped out. The ring that holds the bush in place at the end of the beam is still firmly attached. May be a quick fix, to simply push a new bush back in. Hammer and spanner required!

Unfortunately 2 AA men and a 170 mile journey on the back of a recovery truck say otherwise. Its definitely the metal that has failed. I put it up on axle stands last night and grabbed this pic, hopefully it shows it better, bit hard to see due to being covering everything in plusgas.




 

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1 hour ago, mk2 said:

Yeah... Gosh, looking at that pic of the weld having completely separated is a tad worrying. Never seen anything like that before. I shall check both of my SDIs today!

 

Thanks for posting that pic. Please show us a few more once it is out... It'll help out loads of us here on the forum, so we'll know what to look for.

You're real lucky that that didn't happen at speed.

I wouldn't worry too much. At 170k mine is/was still on the original beam ;) 

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1 hour ago, Skezza said:

I wouldn't worry too much. At 170k mine is/was still on the original beam ;) 

The irony being I chose this car for being a relatively low 80,000 miler. Oh well, I've hopefully found a few beams so should be back on the road by Monday. I'm just hoping the brake lines play ball and aren't seized together.

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4 minutes ago, benherron said:

The irony being I chose this car for being a relatively low 80,000 miler. Oh well, I've hopefully found a few beams so should be back on the road by Monday. I'm just hoping the brake lines play ball and aren't seized together.

Got a rear disc beam?

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2 hours ago, Skezza said:

Got a rear disc beam?

If your in Stoke that could work as I'm working in Crewe at the moment and living in Kidderminster. I could pop down Thursday evening and pick it up.

edit: just re-read this, if your asking have i found a disc beam then no, just non-abs drum ones.

Edited by benherron
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Looking at that new pic ,it looks like the ring/tube/sleeve that holds the bush in place has split and pulled away. The metal must have been ever so thin for that to happen. Really unusual. Just about every vdub since mk1 golf has been the same design and I've never ever seen that happen before. Usually the hub tube rusts away at the weld, which then begins to crack. But the sleeve.... Never!

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2 hours ago, mk2 said:

Looking at that new pic ,it looks like the ring/tube/sleeve that holds the bush in place has split and pulled away. The metal must have been ever so thin for that to happen. Really unusual. Just about every vdub since mk1 golf has been the same design and I've never ever seen that happen before. Usually the hub tube rusts away at the weld, which then begins to crack. But the sleeve.... Never!

Yeh like I said I don't have a full crash history so can't say if it wasn't weakened due to a shunt or something. I'll take a few more pics tomorrow when I get the beam off. 

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Frankly I'd love to see some better pics of this once you have the beam removed, it does look as though the 'sleeve' section that sits on the bushe has cracked/failed... Pretty scary stuff TBH. Like you say, had this gone on the motorway it could have been a real problem -_-

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