MacGregorSailors.com

Two q's on the trailer. 1. Broke stud. How do you replace. 2. how do you remove brake drum. I asume a puller is required.

Great to be back on discussion board after 4 yrs.

Des UK

You should not need a puller unless the insides are badly rusted up.

You may need to reach through the backing plate with a screwdriver and back the star wheel adjuster off a turn or two to pull the shoes away from the drum. Then remove the grease cover or bearing buddy, cotter pin and nut and you should be able to just pull the hub/drum assembly off. Once the drum is off, take it to any machine shop and they will be able to press the old broken stud out and press a new one in.

I would not recommend you try to drive the broken stud out with a hammer and drift; it's quite difficult to do so without damaging the drum or yourself. If you have access to a press you could do it yourself, otherwise you'd be better off just having a machine shop do it

If you're totally unfamiliar with this, you need at the very least a good diagram of the parts if not a manual which describes the whole procedure. You'll have to clean and relube the hubs and bearings, and replace the inner seal on the hub; if you've never had the drums off before you're probably due for a complete brake rebuild. This is not a difficult job but it is fairly time consuming, and you may need some special tools.

If you can't find something on the web, you would be way ahead investing in a repair manual up front; then you can review the procedure and decide if it's something you want to tackle on your own.

Any manual which covers surge brakes will do. I have a generic trailer repair manual I bought nearly 30 years ago and the diagrams and procedures are identical to the brakes on my '01 trailer.

http://www.msnusers.com/macgregor26/Doc ... arings.pdf

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Bruce

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Moe

I once read that in the UK the stock Mac26 trailer is considered nothing more that packing material to be discarded when the container is unloaded. This was because they have more rules about what a trailer must be in the UK. Is this still true? If it is, please describe what a Mac26 trailer in the UK looks like. Thank You

Here we go.

The guy said he has a broken stud.

No kidding. A couple years of dipping my good trailer in salt, the studs are orange and bent and look like the entails of an ancient Ethiopian antique.

I need a six foot cast pipe lever over the rachet handle to turn new nuts on them.

This is what prompted me to think of changing to disks, because the hubs would be replaced with new 'studs' I should think.

Yeah, as Chip says, crank the brake shoes down. Hook up a pickup truck perpendicular to the hub and give it a little slack, then bust forward and 'snatch' it off.

Thanks for your suggestions guys, better get me a pick-up truck!!.

Rob mentioned the type of trailer I have. Well I bought mine in Holland and trailered it to the UK. It's appears to be the standard trailer over there though in our boat park their are approx 20 M26X's, most have galv trailers. Mine is black heavy grade channel with a kinda red oxide undercoat. Does the job but it looks like it,s been pulled out of the sea after 10 yrs. I,ll have to strip and repaint every year from now to keep it lookin nice.

Keep the

des uk wrote:Well I bought mine in Holland and trailered it to the UK.

All sorts of amphibious jokes there, but I guess I'll let it slide.

I assume your trailer has the same type surge brakes as those in the states.

I'll assume the truck suggestion for pulling the hubs off is a joke and not comment on that as well.

Sounds like this guy has a stock trailer like all of us received. Somehow able to smuggle it into the UK.

I had a lot of trouble getting my first hub off because I didn't know the brake shoes were squeezing against the sides. I hooked up a 'wheel puller' to the edges, ran a rope through it, and looped it over the trailer hitch on my '79 Dodge half ton Power Wagon, and let her rip. Poing, off she come.

I am then enlightened and go over to the other wheel/hub and crank the shoes back. With this I am able to wiggle off the hub with my mighty fingers.

Must have pulled off a couple of hundred stuck brake drums off old VWs over the years...never had to resort to a puller.

If the drum is stuck,my experience was that the brake adjusters were usually also fubar, so

The best tool is a rubber mallet, which you can bang the h*** out of the drum to break the rust - bang axially and sideways too - have fun...pretend its that jerk in Finance who does expense reports and wants your receipt for the ink cartridge

Dont hit it with a real hammer or you can crack the drum

Catigale

Catigale wrote:Dont hit it with a real hammer or you can crack the drum

Indeed! Similarly, I've pulled off my share of drums from LBC's, and they can be a bear. Usual culprit is that either the adjusters hang, the shoes weld themselves to the drum (via rust), or the hub flange rusts to the drum mating surface... and nearly all of these conditions can be resolved with a series of sharp hammer blows.

The method I use is to hit the drum all the way round the drum, striking the drum perpendicular to the axle shaft (i.e. around the outermost part of the drum's rim). Then, I pull on one side of the drum flange and strike the other from behind, hitting the ridge at the edge of the drum - essentially you're applying pressure to one side when you strike the other - then keep rotating around until you 'walk' the drum off the axle & shoes.

However, I don't use a rubber mallet, as it doesn't transfer enough energy and the rebound is a killer on my hands & wrists(!). I also don't use a steel hammer, because you can easily crack the drum - or at the very least break of a bit off the rim. Instead, I use a dead-blow hammer with a rubber face, and that works a treat (see below). And if you're getting older - and like who isn't - those repeated blows to your joints can result in some nasty arthritis pain... so I've learned the hard way to minimise shocks to my joints whenever possible..

The hammer I use - for nearly everything mechanical, actually - is THIS ONE, and it's the best damned hammer you'll ever want. Yeah, I know Snap-on Tools are *obscenely* expensive, but nobody else I know makes anything close to as good as this one - a dead-blow hammer with a stainless steel head on one side and a rubber head on the other, fully coated with a non-skid/non-slip flourescent orange rubber coating, and therefore nearly completely weather resistant... the best possible hammer for a boat or workshop. Plus, the heads can be replaced if you bugger'em up, too. As for the price - well, at US$66.95 this baby will last you a lifetime if somebody doesn't steal it (like my last one! grrrr...). I don't travel without it. (And for any other clown clown that tries to steal my good hammer from henceforth, fair warning - you will most certainly be keel-hauled... even if you are family).


Snap-on Stock # HSPD16 - Hammer, Dead Blow, Steel and Soft Face, 16 oz.- Designed to deliver sustained impact and maximum striking force with almost no rebound.