Short story long. When lit'l bro and I go to Montrose Co hunting we pull a '96 goosenect cargo trailer that's been converted into a backwoods boondocking hunting trailer/camper. Insulated walls and ceiling, running water, shower, kitchen with stove and sink, shelves for food and fully wired. It's really a comfortable way to rough it and has room to haul 3, 4-wheelers along with all the gear for 3 on a two week trip.
Well, the downside is the trailer's only pulled this one outing a year so tires are about 15 years old now and not road worthy. The solution is to swap the always late model tires off the wife's horse trailer (235/85/16's) to the hunting trailer. Of course she doesn't sit home while we're gone so I put the tires from the 3600 (215/85/18 E rated) on her trailer. Then temporarily put the hunting trailers old tires on the '51 so I can move it around. Little Bro usually helps with this little exercise.
We got back from this years hunt last Friday and I decided on Sunday to put all the tires back where they belong. Using the "while I'm in there" philosophy with the 3600 I decided this would be a good time to pull the left front hub and install one of the nos inner wheel bearing I'd just scored on Ebay. We were already in the shop, wheel bearing on the shelf and I'd tweeked my 3 jaw puller and felt I'd be successful this time in pulling the hub (not the case last year, couldn't get it off). My firm belief was the inner bearing had been cooked on a trip when the wheel locked up due to a brake issue which to my feeble brain was why I couldn't pull the hub. But that's another story for another day.
Got the front hub off, no drama this time. Inner bearing was great, so much for my theorizing. But the leading brake shoe was getting very thin and I just happened to have two new shoes in a box out of sight. Don't ask why, I don't remember. Since the rear shoe was good I changed the worn shoe and buttoned up that side, proper tire back on and all.
Now to the right front, I did ponder for several minutes but finally decided I had to at least check the shoes since I was almost in there. A few minutes later I saw both shoes looked as they should. Drum back on and now to adjust, front adjuster Won't turn. Back off comes the drum, adjuster on the front of the Huck wheel cylinder is totally frozen, rear seal is just showing the slightest of dampness. Dang!
Leaving the brake cylinder in place, pull rear seal, find slight shallow longitudinal wear marks. Work front seal out the rear opening with small thin screwdrivers, looks great. Next drive the front piston out with a short 3/4" diameter rod and bfh. Dang again, early signs of brake fluid needing to be changed with slight build up of gunk, but no major corrosion. I did manage to find my old two stone brake cylinder hone and honed the cylinder till it was clean and shinny.
Being this was Sunday afternoon I knew there was no way I'd find the 1.25 cups to do a proper repair and besides it's a hour turnaround to town. So a bit of 400 sand paper to remove the scaring on the seal followed up with 800, then 1200 grit and it looked very acceptable.
Reassembled with the cups swapped just for good measure.
Now it's obvious I've behind on changing brake fluid since it'd been 4 years and I did have a unopened quart of Dot 4 fluid on the shelf. I persuaded the wife to help with the pumping duties and we proceeded to bled and adjust all the wheels.
Well, that's done. It was late in the day (as in almost dark) but I did finish the tire swapping detail and everything was finally put away in it's proper hay shed storage spot.
Once again, a fairly small project morphs into a much bigger deal. When will I learn, on yeah, never.
Last edited by moparguy; 11/04/2019 7:11 PM.
