[FC] Removing stuck brake drums

[Shaun]

Easy there, partner!
On the back of the backing plate you can see where the 2 studs that hold the 
brake shoes onto the backing plate come through, they look like the head of 
a nail. Grind those off. Things should get a lot easier after that...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Sego" <andrew_sego at yahoo.com>
To: <corvanatics at corvair.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 3:23 PM
Subject: [FC] Removing stuck brake drums


I'm trying to remove some rear drums that just won't budge. This was a 
vehicle that was parted out. I dropped the powertrain and rear suspension as 
a unit partially because of the locked up drums. Once it was on the ground, 
I removed the bolts holding the A arm's to the suspension crossmember to 
separate the engine from the suspension.

Now I have a drum, axle, and lower A arm stuck together on my bench. I'm 
looking for ideas to separate all this. The parts I definitely want to save 
are the axles/bearings, and lower A arms. The brake parts are fairly 
unimportant to me, and probably useless anyway. I'd like the backing plates, 
and parking brake struts too if possible. The rest is easily replaceable.

I think the drums are stuck to the shoes, as well as the drum center hole 
being rusted to the axle center. This was a 64 so it has self adjusters on 
the brakes. The holes in the drums are not lined up with the adjuster 
wheels.

I've been thru this kind of thing before but this one is a bear. I'm 
thinking I might take a 4" angle grinder and cut a path around the face of 
the brake drum. Maybe if the center can break free on it's own I can get the 
axle out and then work the brakes loose.

Do any old pros have any tricks or advice?

Thanks,
Andrew
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