Fitting 4x130 rear drums onto an early 5x205 Bug rear end?

[onemoreproject]

Hi Can anyone help with this, I currently use adapters to run my wheels on the rear of my bug but they're causing me issues with tyre clearance with my rear wings - I'd like to ditch the adapters and run late drums on my early rear end. Its on a 1960 Bug.

I've had machining the snouts of the drums mentioned - if anyone has any info on this it'd be really helpful! What bearings would be used etc. or ideally if there's an off the shelf drum that just bolts on that would be awesome too!

Cheers,
Jamie

[Marc]

4x130 rear drums will fit right over `58-up Bug brakes once the snout's machined shorter to adapt to the shorter splined area of the early axles. This must be done with precision (i.e. on a lathe) so that the end remains perpendicular to the splines, else the axle will tweak and wobble when the nut's torqued down.

Take the new drums to the machinist along with one of the old ones for him to compare the length. Better to have them cut slightly long than slightly short, ~2mm extra snout length will still allow full axle nut thread engagement while leaving a little material just in case the cuts need to be retrued.

No other changes are needed. Personally I like to update the axle nuts to the later style with integral flange (provides greater surface area against the drum) but the original ones would still work.

[onemoreproject]

Spot on information Marc, just what I was after!

[Steve Arndt]

The standard is to take 5/8" off the snout of the late drum to work on early short swing short spline.

[FJCamper]

Here's a set of rear 4-bolt drums we adopted to a '65 swing axle Ghia.

The machinist took off way too much, so we compensated by using an axle spacer meant for rear disks on "short" swing axles. The machinist even cut the spacer a bit to make it all fit to spec.

The combo has held for many races.

FJC