We frequently remove brake drums to find the brake shoes have wear grooves in them like in this image. This is caused by grooves in the metal brake drum friction surface wearing into the brake shoes, mirroring the drum wear pattern. 

This issue causes reduced braking effort as the contact area of the brake shoe lining is reduced and this increases stopping distances as well as causing vibrations and increasing the wear of the brake shoes friction lining. 

We always check the brake drum lining when replacing brake shoes and if the drum has scoring or grooves, we will either skim the brake drum smooth or if the grooving is minimal or replace the drum if the grooves are deep. 

Darren dropped his super cool Rothfink branded '63 ragtop bug in for its annual MOT today.

The front axle beam on Bruce's limited edition Sunshine Beetle had seen better days and was too far gone to be repaired safely so we hunted out a RHD replacement standard front axle. Sadly, all genuine used axles we find also needed significant repairs and our hunt for a good quality reproduction RHD standard beam proved to be fruitless with all the main parts suppliers being out of stock with no restock date. Finding a LHD beam to convert to was the same story until we struck it lucky and got the last remaining LHD standard front beam. 

We had to convert the axle beam to RHD and after a few hours, Bruce's Beetle was back on its wheels ready for the spring. 

Work got underway on Nick's semi-auto beetle floorpan half replacement. The existing pan halves were in pretty poor condition with a number of previous repairs and corrosion holes visible on both sides. 

With the rotten floorpans removed, the chassis frame head and centre tunnel repairs are going to be repaired next before the new pan halves are welded on.