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[Kelvinboater]

Hi, I've had a look at the common problems, and also searched the forum, but no joy...
The rear brake backplate where the handbrake mechanism sits (inside the disc/drum) has become distorted and torn and the handbrake operating lever has broken clean off. I guess that the mechanism had seized so was imposing more force on the lever.
My father in law took it to his garage, and they told him that the backplate was no longer available from Vauxhall (which I have confirmed), and to scrap the car! Tried a few specialist breakers but no luck, but there are a few in my nearest scrapyard (about 50 miles away!) so I'm going to try there.
The question is - how do you remove the hub to change the backplate? I've popped off the dustcap expecting to find a biiiig nut to undo, but nothing! So I expect that I have to split the driveshaft at the outer joint, but that looks a bit of a ball ache...
He bought a manual on CD from ebay, but couldn't get it to run without crashing, so looks like we will have to get a Haynes book of lies, unless someone could help please?
As a last resort, if the 'proper' way isn't practical to carry out in a scrapyard, I was considering cutting a segment out of the backplate, and welding it back up again in situ. As far as I can see, this shouldn't cause any problems as the fixing bolts will keep it from distorting even if is wasn't welded.

[unlucky alf]

what i done with my back plates was to get a speednut [the thing used with self tappers] & align it at the back of the ripped hole, then push the retaining pin through & lock it into the speed nut & hey presto

[andyc]

You have the same problem as me in that you have the early back plates.

Back plates ARE available from GM but you have to use the later type that has the shoe retaing pin coming through from the back.

The special VX tool comes in about ten different pieces and sods law is we done have it in our workshop, spent last saturday afternoon in the tool room looking for it.

To do it the "Vauxhall" way you need to drop the drive shaft of from the hub, undo the big nut, push the hub out of the bearing, replace back plate.

While your there you might as well do the bearings at the same time.

Do a search on the forum for rear bearing replace as there are a couple of posts about this

I've got six months before my MOT so i think i'll get the car over to mu friends machine Shop and make the tooling up as we go along

cheers
Andy

[Kelvinboater]

I phoned up the main stealer and asked about two part numbers - 90374616 and 9156093. I was told that the first was obsolete, and the second there was "No more service". But what you're telling me is that the second part number is still available, in which  case I'd better try another dealer! It wouldn't be the first time I've come across 'can't be arsed to look properly' syndrome...

In fact the best time was at a Landrover dealer (sorry for digressing!)- I was after a hose from the water pump on an early Range Rover engine.
Dealer: Sorry sir, the computer only goes back as far as 1990.
Me: Well, can't you please just have a look on the shelves and see if there is anything matching what I have in my hand?
Dealer: Sorry, we have far too much stock, and it's so old we wouldn't have it in anyway.
Old guy wandering in from the storeroom: Is that off a Rover V8?
Me: Yes...
Old guy: Is it the hose from the water pump to the inlet manifold?
Me: Yes!
Old guy (to the original bloke 'serving' me): Well that's part number FRC such-and-such, you'll find it on the second shelf down, third from the left.

Brilliant.

Back to the Omega, I will do a search for hub bearing replacement, thanks for the pointer! I'm away this weekend so won't be able to make any progress, but will report back on what I end up doing...

[andyc]

sorry mate but your can't read his EPC

9156092 has changed to 24436738 & 9156093 has changed to 24436739

So you need
24436738 LH Back Plate £17.37
24428129 Gasket £1.62
24445691 Cover £1.04

24436739 RH Back Plate £17.37
24428129 Gasket £1.62
24445691 Cover £1.04

Gasket and cover are required when putting late back plates on early cars

You wil also need a brake shoe fitting kit 93174289 @ £6.72

All parts are available, all prices are subject to VAT and i can supply mail order

Cheers
Andy

[Kelvinboater]

Thanks again Andy, once I had selected 'All posts' rather than just the last week( ) in the search criteria I was able to find this post, amongst others...
Still not sure I fancy the idea of a 4 day epic though :-/

I will talk to my father in law next week and decide what to do - chances are we'll be taking you up on the mail order offer and perhaps getting a bearing kit too.

[Big_Roger]

Hi,
I see you have read the saga of my 4 day LH rear wheel bearing replacement.

Since doing the LH rear wheel which was really noisy, I could then hear the RH rear bearing slightly, so have now done the RH rear wheel as well. I am pleased to say this side was no problem at all, and came apart classic textbook style.
I had chance to make some improvements to how I did it.

To get your brake plate off, yes you still have to undo the allen bolts and remove the drive shaft, and undo the big nut, (it's 32 mm AF dont get the heavy duty very thick wall version, it won't go in the recess)

To get the hub and shaft from the bearing I found the following ideal.

Get yourself a couple of 10mm  set bolts at least 100 mm long and nuts. File or grind the ends to app 60 deg point.
On the hub you will see that there are two holes that are opposite each other. One is the plain hole for adjusting the brake shoes, and opposite this is the tapped hole for the wheel fixing bolt. You use these holes to jack off the hub with the 10 mm set bolts.( 10mm bolt will just go through the 12 mm wheel bolt hole)
If you look at the brake shoes, you will see that the centre rib is cut away enough for you to see the heads of the bolts that hold the back plate to the suspension arm.

Line up the two opposite holes in the hub with two of these torx head bolts, put the set bolts through then a washer and nut, screw through nut untill the points you put on end of bolts engage into the heads of the torqx bolts.
Then, with a spanner holding the nut, and a ratchet turning the set bolt, half turn on each bolt at a time, jack the hub out of the bearing.  Just like that!!

You will probably find that part of the inner ring of the bearing will also come out on the shaft of the hub, so I think you need to allow for doing the complete job.

The next problem is that when you come to pushing the hub shaft back into the bearing, it will push the other half of the inner ring of the bearing out, as not enough of the threaded part of the hub shaft will be through to get the nut on to pull it through at first.

I did the first one with a couple of strongbacks and studding, with a piece of tube on the bearing inner race, for the shaft to push through into.

For the second one, I bought a spare nut similar to the inner flange nut, and had a 200mm long piece of 12 mm studding welded to it.
With this assembly screwed onto the thread on the hub shaft, put through the bearing and a suitable piece of tube or large socket as a spacer on the inner side, some washers and a nut on the studding, you can pull the hub shaft through the bearing with no chance of any damage. Just like that!!

Using this gear, and the fact the bearing etc all came out as you would normally expect on such a job, I did the complete bearing change in 6 hours.

HTH

Roger

[rustym95]

Hi there you can buy a washer that replaces it cost about 20p use metal glue take about 10mins to do and these dont rust can get them at halfords etc.

[Kelvinboater]

Well, it's been quite a while since I posted this and I have finally completed the job! (Got sidetracked as my daily driver Citroen decided to crack its head, also trying to build a garage before the winter.)
Thanks to Big_Roger for his detailed write up on how to do the job - I feel very guilty now that I didn't actually have to replace the backplate at all.
In all honesty I should have had a good look at the job myself, not reply on what the garage that my father in law used said. When I glanced at the backplate on the car after he'd brought it back from the garage I saw the slot at the bottom. I assumed that this was once a circular hole which had torn into a slot. When I received the new backplate I could see that all that had happened was that the edges of the slot had got slightly crinkled. They'd taken all the brake parts out from the inside of the drum, and put most of them in a box in the boot!
The only part that had broken is the casting at the bottom of the mechanism - mucho thanks go to Andy for his ability to understand what I was trying to describe to him over the phone, and to get the bits to me quickly. After a couple of evenings working out what went where, and what the garage had lost ( ) the car is now back on the road and working correctly! The difficult part of the job is where the garage had sheared off one of the backplate bolts, completely flush - I guess it had seized in place. Fortunately I managed to weld a nut to it (although access was tricky and it took 3 attempts!)

[smokingomega]

Hi
I just taken the backplates off a x reg 2.5 petrol for my n reg 2.5td. I was just wondering What are the 24428129 Gasket £1.62 and  24445691 Cover £1.04 for?
Cheers

[Kelvinboater]

The cover is for the slot where the handbrake lever comes through the backplate, and the gasket is (I think) for fitting between the backplate and the rear trailing arm.
I have mine spare now if you need them!