Hello everyone. I have a 2005 4/4 with the normal brakes and BTR rear axle. One of the rear brakes is not releasing properly and I need to sort it. I will need to take off the rear hub to get at the problem . I can see how I remove the hub but I am not sure of the hub replacement procedure, could someone tell me how it's done, if the bearings are ball or roller bearings ,any torque wrench settings etc. Thanks for any help you can offer me Keith
You can overhaul the brakes without removing the hub and without touching the bearings etc. But I suggest you take it to a garage; I'm with Martin on this.
Not sure if your brakes are the same as my previous cars, a 2010 4/4 with its BTR axle but when Mike Duncan replaced my handbrake cable, he had to take the hub off as it was impossible for him to get behind it to fit the cable. Depends on the size of your hands I guess and long slim fingers would be a blessing. I'm not sure he torqued up the hub nut when he refitted; I do know he tightened it and then backed off slightly to fit the split pin, but then it's probably down to his years of experience.
Jays Former Morgan owner. Gone but hopefully not forgotten!
I recently had to service the rear brakes on my +8, and I have worked on my cars for 38 years, I have to say the rear brakes on a Morgan are not the easiest to do. The brake drums will come off with if sticking on the shoes by hitting with a rubber mallet. The difficult bit is releasing the 3 springs that pull the shoes inwards, the springs go behind the hub, so patience and jiggling is required. Once off everything needs to be cleaned up and made grease free. The brake slave cylinder that pushes the shoes out at the top needs to be taken off the backing plate to be able to get the shoes back and the springs back from where they came. I understand it is common for the slave cylinders to rust up and leak on Morgans as one of mine did, and would recommend that you replace these and do not try and service. Where the shoes contact the backing plate a thin coating of high temperature copper slip should be applied, do not over do this you do not want any to get onto the braking surface that touches the drums during re-assembly. Once you have the shoes and springs back in place on the backing plate then you can fit the slave cylinder, which is not easy as the top of the shoes have to be spread apart as you get it in place.
I struggled with the first side re-assembling for 1.5 hours with much cursing, and the other side took me an hour. If you are not a proficient mechanic or worked on brakes before I would concur with the earlier comments, Morgan rear brakes are very fiddly to do. Remember the brakes are your life line!
If you do dive in only take one side apart leaving the other side as a reference to refer to, then when one side is done do the other. You will need someone to pump the brake pedal to bleed them, as you hold a collection pot at each brake and watch for when no more air bubbles are present and then lock off the bleed nipple. Start at the furthest away from the master cylinder, and then bleeding each one in turn till you end up at the nearest, no more than 8 pumps between topping up the master cylinder reservoir, and only top up with new fluid into the reservoir, none from the result of pumping. You will need to bleed all 4 and did mine twice to ensure there was no air in the system.
Adrian
Buggered Off, to a modern none leaky car, heart's still ticking
Morning everyone.thanks for the info, all of a great help.I have sorted the off side brake that was sticky by leaving the hub on the shaft and removing the springs. I removed the automatic adjusting bar and removed .5mm from the face as recommended on the Gomog site. That was the easy bit, getting it back together ain't much fun. It can be done but I figure the job would be a doddle with the hub out of the way. The fix works a treat by the way . The near side brake also needs a shave from the adjusting bar so back to the operating table we go. Best wishes Trodnik
@ trodnik I had the same problem when I took the Plus 8 (2001) to technical inspection (TUV in Germany). Left hand slave cylinder was clogged (rusty). I tried to follow gomog advice to remove the hub. There are two contradictonary advices. 1) remove the hub 2) don't remove the hub. I couldn't get off the hub. I kept on going w/o removing the hub. Later I found that link for a hydraulic hub puller (10 ton !!) http://www.mulfab.co.uk/our-products/6/tools Replacing the brake shoes is indeed a painful exercise. Having attached the revised slave cylinder and mounted the brake shoes I used a large clamp to hold the shoes in place and could mount the springs. The trick to get the shoes into the right place is to detach the handbrake cable first (near the axle where the other side handbrake cable is mounted to the adjuster) Then bleed the brake lines, put on the drum and only than reattach the handbrake cable. Axel PS removing the hub is only necessary when changing to wheel wires or vice versa
Advantage of hydraulic brakes: equally surface pressure all around (old advertisment of ATE)
