B20 - Brake drum cover

[Charles T]

Good afternoon all,

One of the rear brake drums covers has a slight indent on the rim, which is grinding slightly against the outer face of the fixed drum face as it rotates.  This is in one particular, small area of the circumference.

The indent is not big, but enough to make a knocking noise and is fairly resistant to being turned by hand from the wheel. If you drive fast enough, the noise is less noticeable but I do not think that is a very practical way of dealing with the problem!

I think that I will need to remove the outer brake drum cover to straighten out the indent. It all looks fairly tight for space.  Taking off the outer section/s of the exhaust is going to help.  Before I start taking this apart, it would be useful to confirm that it is possible to remove the brake drum cover without removing the transaxle from the car.

Can anyone give me any pointers on this one?

Thank you,
Charles

[Charles T]

I managed to remove the brake drum cover, after some persistence.

It turns out that one of the bolts that secures the cover to the drum mounting flange had worked slightly loose, leaving the head of the bolt protruding behind the flange.  It was grinding against the brake cylinder on each rotation. It does not appear to have done any damage. Fortunately I have been able to tighten the bolt back home without having to remove anything else.

Everything is now rotating freely without any grinding or resistance.  I hope it will be just a question of putting everything back together now.

Charles