Tree detritus under fender panels

 I recently had my van in the shop for a couple months over the winter while I was taking care of some body work and other misc. maintenance.  I had a dent in the R side fender that I wanted to deal with and that warranted taking off the fender panel. Wow, I'm glad I did!

 This is what I found: 21 yrs of tree debris that had collected, composted and turned to soil in the bottom of this pile. This prompted me to take off the L side as well to see what was going on over there and clean things up.

Basically the same thing on this side. Remarkably there was no rust on either side, not on the bulkhead side, nor on the fender panel itself. Impressive primer job VW!

After cleaning this up, fixing the dent and reassembling, what I did in terms of abatement of this problem was to run over to the local pet store and pick up a small block of foam used in an aquarium filtration system and I used this to plug the pathway on either end of the rain gutter underneath the windshield. 

It's an experiment but I figure it will allow water to flow down and away and allow me to capture and clean out any accumulation rather than it accumulating and decomposing out of sight underneath the fender panel for the next bunch of years.  481k miles and counting  ;-)

2000 Eurovan rear wheel bearing replacement in situ

This repair was on my personal 2000 Eurovan weekender Syncro, with rear control arms from a 2001+ model with the corresponding larger wheel brake calipers. Now at 481k miles....  That doesn't really effect the repair but worth noting.  

 

 

First step, remove wheel hub from bearing sans proper tools. Get creative and do no harm.

Hub removed now time to remove bearing race from hub on the vice. 

Hub secured in vise, two jaw puller removing bearing race. 

Hub freed of race and cleaned up. 

Next step pull bearing out of control arm knuckle. Don’t forget to remove the giant circlip now accessible. Pull out a bunch of tools you haven’t used in years

 

Pull out old bearing using screw technique. Lube your threads as needed, you’ll know when it’s enough.  

 

 

Old bearing removed.

 

 

 Old bearing removed from housing. Clean till sparkly.

Pressing new bearing in.

New bearing installed. Don't forget to install circlip.

Reinstall wheel hub.

Installed.

 

 

Inner view of new bearing.

 

 

Next intall rotor shield, and install rotor/caliper. Torque spec on caliper bolts is 81ft/lbs.

Inner view with custom L rear axle installed.

Make sure weight is on the ground and wheel is chocked and torque. Rear axle bolt 148ft/lbs.




Final step: torque wheel bolts to 118ft/lbs.