One wheels off and the axle's draggin'

Yep, on my way back to Inverell from the Nationals last night, I had my LH front wheel, brake disk, and all associated gear leave the car at a good 100kmph. Still haven't found the wheel ect in the long grass - will have a look today.

It happened between Scone & Murrurundi - I am in Murrurundi now - Lee, anyone around here who you would recomend?

Reminded my of what my dad used to say - "One wheels off and the axle's draggin', that's what happens when you own a Volkswagen". lol

Recon I know what happened. The wheel spotted that kangaroo that got you last time, and went after it.

Look for a dead 'roo with tyre marks all over it.🙄

OMG where did that happen?
i seen you on Friday leaving the servo at uralla (looked like you where in a hurry 😉
and i seen you at the nats talking to rose but i had to get home
hope you find your wheel !!!

nymeyer at belmont may have some parts.
49 45 4811.

Haha had this one happend to me in a 1500 beetle bang in the middle of Melbourne... snapped 2 ball joints (car was stupid low and i was young...) Saw a wheel overtake me and commented to my mate the passenger that some idiot had lost a wheel ... 5 sec later crunch.. the car comes to a grinding halt!! Twaz my wheel that had overtaken me!😁

well it is your birthday, maybe your both getting old 🙁🙂😬

What do you reckon happened Jeff?

Did the nut unwind or did the bearings disintegrate?

Lucky the wheel didn't trash the guard on the way out.


Regards,

Matt.

Matt Ryan wrote:What do you reckon happened Jeff?

Did the nut unwind or did the bearings disintegrate?

Lucky the wheel didn't trash the guard on the way out.


Regards,

Matt.

I don't think the nut unwound - I would have to go with the bearing disintegrating. The other wheel had the bearing collapse only a week ago, but it made a lot of noise before that, so I repladed it before it let me down. I did check this one - seemed ok. They are both only about 13months old - did about 30,000km.

The end of the stub axle is broken off at the start of the thread, but whether this was the cause, or it broke off as the hub came off.

The lip of the guard is cracked and marked. Adam only re-did it for me 2 weeks ago after a 'lady' didn't give way to me at a roundabout. I will have to find the big target that must be painted on it. lol

Hi Jeff

YIKES...

that isn't good... Lucky no more damage or worse....

I don't know where You would get an L bug front axle etc...

Only mechanic I have used here in Scone is Ward brothers

they have a small pantech truck they take to jobs..

I'm presuming You will be stuck until You get the parts??

LEE

Did the brake caliper go too?

I don't know anything about L beetles

LEE

68AutoBug wrote:Did the brake caliper go too?

I don't know anything about L beetles

LEE

good question? how did it get out? must of pried its way out?


what caused the spindle to snap there. my hunch says when your bearing failed the heat weakened the stub or the mechanical impact of broken bearings?

Gee you have had some bad luck with that car recently, you might be right about the target painted on it :-)

On a side note, nice to meet you at the show. I have seen you around at several shows/shops, but never knew that it was you (beetleboyjeff) until yesterday.

Good luck with the repairs and hope she's back up and running soon.

Kev

Is the sub axle the same on l beetle as any other super bug? I may have the sub axles off the car
You got the steering box out of jeff

The brake caliper broke it's mounting tab off, and was still on the disc, which was still on the wheel (when I found it - about 350m down the road. I will post pictures tonight when I get a chance.

I have been talking to VVD, and they can get all the parts for me and send them up. The shop in Murrurundi, who are also the NRMA towing agent, said they can fit the new parts for me.

I have a hire care, and as soon as I sort the last of the arrangements with the shop here, I am heading to Inverell in the hire car. I will hopefully pick up my car later in the weeki.

then you can disregard my phone message Jeff, good luck with it.

I had a similar experience about 7-8 years ago except my wheel stayed on thank god.

The bearings completely disintergrated when I was driving down the pacific highway at 110km/h

luckily though the caliper kept the disc and wheel on the spindle.
Got so hot it fused the bearing inner race to the spindle.
I thought it had just been my caliper sticking.

beetleboyjeff wrote:The brake caliper broke it's mounting tab off, and was still on the disc, which was still on the wheel (when I found it - about 350m down the road. I will post pictures tonight when I get a chance.

I have been talking to VVD, and they can get all the parts for me and send them up. The shop in Murrurundi, who are also the NRMA towing agent, said they can fit the new parts for me.

I have a hire care, and as soon as I sort the last of the arrangements with the shop here, I am heading to Inverell in the hire car. I will hopefully pick up my car later in the weeki.

Sorry to see you are having problems,the main thing is that you escaped unscathed as the potential was horrendous.If you need any bits let me know. Cheers Les

Well you could say the car has had alot of bad luck but i say the cars just had a dam lot of adventure and I'm sure Jeff has had a bit of adventure thru it all. Thats the positive way to look at it i guess. On the other hand, Hows it coming along Jeff? Have you tracked down parts? Hope all Comes along well.

From Dylan

It looked good when you over took us on the M2 if that is any help.

Camo wrote:Gee you have had some bad luck with that car recently, you might be right about the target painted on it :-)

On a side note, nice to meet you at the show. I have seen you around at several shows/shops, but never knew that it was you (beetleboyjeff) until yesterday.

Good luck with the repairs and hope she's back up and running soon.

Kev

JEFF

Good to see You have it all on the way and the car is safe etc
Could have been nasty...

KEV

Easy to find ... look for the feet... 😂

the car doesn't have bad luck when You see how many klms he has traveled in it..

LEE

Happens in threes .....get one of these mate

glad you're ok jeff. happy b'day btw.

shaun, why weren't you loitering around the swap meet... it would have been good to catch up.

henry.

Thanks for the comments guys.

Just been looking it up, the wheel bearing on the same wheel started to collapse on 12-4-11 at 598,801 kms, so we replaced the stub axle then, as the bearing had started to 'weld' itself on, and replaced the bearings.

This time, the car has about 624,500 kms (not sure exactly - the car is still in Murrurundi), so a bit over 13 months and about 25,500 kms.

For some reason, I can't get my photos to load onto Photobucket, so here they are direct - a bit of a pain, doing it this way though.

Here is a photo is the broken stub axle with the speedo cable hanging out.

Here is the wheel as I found it (eventually) with the brake disc and calliper still attached.

And here is the calliper, you can see where it is broken off.

And finally, here is the end of the stub axle with the lock nut on it, and the stuffed bearing.

It looks like that caliper may have been going for a while if the corrosion stains on the break mean anything, makes one wonder what the condition is of the other parts in our "old" cars ❓🤪 and just how long things will hang on even though they are starting to fail.
BTW it's after two, get to bed you old bugger.

Donn, the wheel, disk, and calliper spent the night out in the dew - I am pretty confident it is just from that. It does look a lot worse in the photo than it does in real life.

I wonder if this anything to do with rolling your car? I mean small or big accidents can and do cause subtle damage to other components on the car.

I bought a low mile diff of some guy who said everything was good on the car and it was being wrecked due to smallish accident in the front. well the diff was fuched from the accident.

See I dropped the oil and is was clear as liquid gold proving that it "was" a goodie , but the bearings were fine for the first couple of ks then disintegrated after 10ks of fitting it to my car, Yes! 10km!. I questioned this to my mech I refer to and first thing he asked is if it was in a accident lol

the shock from the crash damaged the pinion bearing 😂🤪😬

There is a reason why they don't allow cars from accidents to be put back on the road, depends on the accident of course.

So perhaps the spindle was bent or cracked from that and wasn't noticble till it fell off. as for the caliper 🤪

I guess that is a possibility. I have done about 18,000 kms since then - I would have thought it would show up before now.

Hi

Glad your OK Jeff, a guy changed lanes into me once and only scuffed the rear right tyre, a week later the outer wheel bearing on that wheel got noisy and the outer cage fractured.

Steve

I wouldn't have thought that the accident could have damaged something if it looked OK...

So, Something to think about...
YIKES..

were the rear wheel bearings replaced Jeff?

although Your car rolled rather slowly I wouldn't have thought of looking at wheel bearings etc..

but the off road excursion may have done it...

Cheers Jeff

LEE

Could be related to the lady at the roundabout bingle too... any scuff marks on the tyre or rim from that one ???

I know several cases where even big potholes saw the end of wheel bearings, bent tie rods etc...

The rollover was a very slow affair, and it was this side of the car that went over, so it didn't touch the ground untill the car was righted again - which seemed to be a fairly gentle affair.

The roundabout bingle was only a slight scrape, and never touched the tire at all. I could post a picture when I am back on my computer (I am on the work computer at the moment).

My thoughts are that the nut was a little tight.

Lee, could you PM me with your phone number - I want to have a yarn to you about if you can help me in getting a beetle and a hire car back from Murrurundi to either Scone or Muswellbrook on Friday afternoon - I don't think I can drive 2 cars at once. If anyone else is going that way on Friday arvo (preferably with a spare driver) or back the other way (to give me a lift back to Murrurundi after I drop the hire car), feel free to chime in.

Sides wrote:Could be related to the lady at the roundabout bingle too... any scuff marks on the tyre or rim from that one ???

I know several cases where even big potholes saw the end of wheel bearings, bent tie rods etc...

yup they certainly do. I had a blowout 3 months ago just from bitumen bits on the road. punctured a hole size of a 50c piece.

beetleboyjeff wrote:The rollover was a very slow affair, and it was this side of the car that went over, so it didn't touch the ground untill the car was righted again - which seemed to be a fairly gentle affair.

The roundabout bingle was only a slight scrape, and never touched the tire at all. I could post a picture when I am back on my computer (I am on the work computer at the moment).

My thoughts are that the nut was a little tight.

Lee, could you PM me with your phone number - I want to have a yarn to you about if you can help me in getting a beetle and a hire car back from Murrurundi to either Scone or Muswellbrook on Friday afternoon - I don't think I can drive 2 cars at once. If anyone else is going that way on Friday arvo (preferably with a spare driver) or back the other way (to give me a lift back to Murrurundi after I drop the hire car), feel free to chime in.

so the side the wheel came off? yeah weight lifting onto the side of the wheel will bugger it not landing upright on them.

Had a notch with bent control arm but was bent after the car sat stationary as you could clearly see where the roller needle imbedded and stayed there on the metal. the car was picked up by a claw in a scrap yard and probably dumped down on and angle. Did no damage to the ball joints, wheel , bearings or spindle. just bent the arm on the shaft as well as the beam slightly.

actually it may have even been when I rolled it onto its roof when I wanted to strip it and I did lift the weight onto that side

🥷

Jeff your bugs like you it doesnt like wearing shoes. Mitchell

Jeff,

Are you ever going to get to see our club site at the Port Macquarie swap meet?

2 years in a row you have stacked it big time in the week before the meet.

Regards,

Matt.

Matt, I am planning to. I hope to pick the car up at Murrurundi on Friday afternoon - just trying to work out how to get the hire car back to either Scone or Muswellbrook. I will then continue down the New England Hwy, wish my Grand daughter (Amyelle) a happy birthday hug at Rutherford, drop a load of gear to Beresfield (looks like I will probably be in Newcastle again next week - if not, I have to pick my trailer up from Newcastle and take it back to Port so I can take it back to Inverell on Sunday evening) and continue back to Port.

I hope Saturday I can swap the guard over with the 'loaner' from Supalook Smash Repairs so they can fix it again next week, give the bug it's 625,000 km service, sort out stuff for the swap meet, and mow the front lawn. Can we make Saturday a 48hr day? or at least use 160 minute hours?

Sunday evening I will go back to Newcastle (unless they have sorted out a few problems at Inverell, in which case I will tow my trailer to Inverell).

The rest of the time I will just sit around I guess, unless I can find something to do (although I am married - I have no doubt Cathy will have PLENTY to keep me occupied).

So, Just another chilled out weekend eh?

Regards,

Matt.

I think this might be the impetus for me to change my bearings.

And Jeff you really are having a rough trot with your bug. I hope it turns around for you very soon.

cam070 wrote:And Jeff you really are having a rough trot with your bug. I hope it turns around for you very soon.

I do a LOT of kms, and I do work it damn hard. I have had a great run up until recently. Shit happens I guess.

Speaking of which, the saga continues.

Left Inverell at midday yesterday to go and pick up my car. My wife rang as I got into Tamworth - she had been talking to the mechanic in Murrurundi that is fixing my car (to try and find out how much it would be), and he had been trying to ring me an hour previously (I didn't have service - the message cam through while I was on the phone) to say he had started my car (I thought he was doing it Thursday - he got the parts Wednesday) and was missing the brake pipe from the calliper to where it joins the flexible hose on the strut - mine had broken off. Shit.

I rang Lee (68 Auto bug), who was driving from Scone to Murrurundi with his wife to help me get the hire car back to Muswellbrook to see if he could help. He was just getting into Murrurundi, and he didn't have one, but his son in Muswellbrook possibly would. He turned round and drove back that way, and rang his son. Luckily, he also rang VVD who told him these pipes are only on supers (strut bugs), so his son probably wouldn't have one. Aaaaah.

I did a lot more ringing around (as Friday afternoon rapidly dissapeared - I was in Murrurundi by now), and VVD had one in Sydney (oh, and the Murrurundi mechanic was closing at 5.30, and didn't normally work on Saturday, but would come in at 9.00am to get me on the road if I could get the parts), so I COULD drive there and pick it up overnight - they would leave it out for me if I decided to go this way.

I tried Ian and Rose, but couldn't get hold of them, then rang the VW guys at Belmont in Newcastle - they didn't have a bug one, but had some Kombi ones - should fit but may be too long - would get me out of trouble though, and closer to pick up than Sydney. I paid for them and arranged for them to leave them out for me (they were leaving 2 different length ones for me).

Just got that organised, and Lee rang me back as I was in Scone - he had talked to his son, and a friend of his in Muswellbrook had the correct pipe off a super - you beauty.

Lee met me there, we got the pipe and took the hire car back - they had closed but were still there, and took it for me. YY.

Sounds OK now? Not that easy. As we were dropping the hire car, the mechanic in Murrurundi rang - the replacement callipers don't clear my mag wheels. I told him we normally had to grind a little off the surface of the calliper to make them fit. They rang back and said the 'little' would be about 12mm - not what I wanted to hear. I suggested we put the spare on that wheel until I get it sorted.

So - Lee gave me a lift back to Murrurundi last night (thanks again so much Lee), and I am in a motel waiting to do see if we can ever get this car on the road enough to limp it home.

And I thought today was going to be busy before. pffft. If I get back to Port before mid afternoon I will be doing damn well I reckon.

Jeff did you get the brake line

vw54 wrote:Jeff did you get the brake line

Yes thanks Dave. Meeting the mechanic at 9.00am to fit it, then see what I can do about the wheels not clearing the calipers.

I tried Ian and Rose, but couldn't get hold of them,


You have my number Jeff 👍👍

Thanks Donn. Looks like I will be back in Newie for the next week or 2 - will try and catch up - I will show you where my oil temp. sender is located if that is any help.

Good luck Jeff.....getting there!

Top job Lee 👍👍

OK, back on the road. Yay. Still have to sort out the calipers not fitting under the wheels thing, but I can do that later.

Thanks for the support and info everyone.

Tops, the bug survives again. 🙂😁

Made it home OK. Been flat ouit since.

11:53 PM.

See you in the morning, Jeff 🙅

No worries Matt. See you then.