720 drums from hell

[KrazzyKevin]

Saturday morning I set about trying to pull apart the drums for the second time on my truck, and the damn things just WONT budge. They are just rusted in place that nothing me and two of my neighbors tried did anything at all. We soaked them in WD40, basted them with propane torches, smacked them with hammers, built a puller thing out of a steering wheel puller and they just wont move.

 

Anybody have any advice?

 

Here is a picture:

 

The only thing I can think of is moving the truck to my school's auto shop and heating the drums with an oxy-acetylene torch to see if that works better than just plain propane...

[izzo]

install that motor, worry about this last.

 

after you get the motor installed, do a 7k rpm clutch dump :D :lol:

 

 

That sucks man

[datzenmike]

Does the drum rotate? If not the shoes may be holding it on. Back off the adjuster wheels and parking brake cable. There should be two small threaded holes opposite each other near the wheel studs. Tighten in two bolts. They will bottom against the axle and pull the drum towards you as you tighten them in. Naturally don't over tighten them and strip or break the bolts off. If the brake shoes are the cause of the drum not coming off then using the bolts may pull them off the backing plate completely!

[KrazzyKevin]

Does the drum rotate? If not the shoes may be holding it on. Back off the adjuster wheels and parking brake cable. There should be two small threaded holes opposite each other near the wheel studs. Tighten in two bolts. They will bottom against the axle and pull the drum towards you as you tighten them in. Naturally don't over tighten them and strip or break the bolts off. If the brake shoes are the cause of the drum not coming off then using the bolts may pull them off the backing plate completely!

 

 

Thanks for the advice, but I already adjusted the brakes, and the drum does rotate freely. And as for the threaded holes, the threads were useless, so we did a thread tap and made them a bit larger, but still no luck. What we did is this:

 

If you look in the picture I posted earlier, that piece of metal that is across the brake is held in place by the two bolts in the holes on the drum, and then in the middle of that piece of metal is a steering wheel puller that is set up so that when you rotate the bolt it pushes into the hub and therefore pulls back on those two bolts on the shoe with quite a bit of force. And what happened is that the piece of metal bent before the drum moved.

 

I don't know if that makes sense, but it's sort of hard to explain.

[izzo]

Makes sense

 

you used that metal thing across the hub as a bracket to use the steering wheel puller right? or w/e. I see what you did lol

 

 

My backs were kinda tight too when i pulled my 720 apart. I used the BFH on the sides of the hubs, and the back of the sides on the lip or w/e. Never hammered on the front of it fearing it may press it on there more. wonder whats causing it to stick on there, did that truck sit for a long time and hub got rusted to shit??

 

 

I have to re-adjust mine soon so i can take pictures of when i do.

[KrazzyKevin]

Makes sense

 

you used that metal thing across the hub as a bracket to use the steering wheel puller right? or w/e. I see what you did lol

 

 

My backs were kinda tight too when i pulled my 720 apart. I used the BFH on the sides of the hubs, and the back of the sides on the lip or w/e. Never hammered on the front of it fearing it may press it on there more. wonder whats causing it to stick on there, did that truck sit for a long time and hub got rusted to shit??

 

 

I have to re-adjust mine soon so i can take pictures of when i do.

 

 

Well, my dad was the original owner, but when he left like... 10 years ago the truck just sat here because my mom doesn't like driving it with no power steering or anything. It was garaged probably 8 out of those 10 years though, so I'm not sure why it's as rusty as it is.

 

I talked to my neighbor a bit ago and he's bringing some liquid nitrogen or something like that from his work and the plan is to heat up the drum with the propane then when it's good and hot freeze the hell out of the middle in hopes that the expansion/contraction will brake it free.

[datsun 521 ute]

I had a similar problem but my disc brake was stuck. Used a propane torch, mallet, steel hammer, tried a few different sprays/release agents and let them soak also. Hit the back of the disc from the outside to inside and vice versa with no success. Called in an expert, 4 hits later with his mallet and the disc was off to my amazment after spending countless hours trying to do what he did in 10 seconds. He gave it 4 really big hits on the face side of the disc around the centre to crack the seal, in my case the rust. Standing thinking to myself, why didn't I think of that. :confused:

[Charlie69]

Had same problem with a 70 521. What I finally noticed on it was some one had beat the shit out of the axle peening it over the drum. I spent days trying to get them off. I finally cut the drums off bought new ones and ground and filed the axles to remove the peened over metal until the drums fit back on like they were ment to.