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.

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

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.

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.

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.