Automotive Stud
07-30-2005, 10:46 PM
First I'll apalogize for the lack of progress pics, but at least I can tell you how I did it.
I did these for my dad's A. His car was already set up with 40 Ford brakes all around. He got the Buick drums and 46-48 hubs to do the conversion and keep his 40 brakes, just adding the buick drums.
With the ford hubs in the buick drum, you end up using all standard 40-48 Ford hardware. Spindles, brake shoes, backing plates, bearings, seals, the works. When you are done you should be able to just replace them with existing 40-48 drums and be good to go.
I was able to do all the needed machine work on a brake lathe.
First you need to get the ford hub to fit in the buick drum with no play. There's a flange on the hub that needs to be cut down to fit the hole in the buick drum. I mounted up the hub and cut the flange down, using a rotor bit at first, but I ended up flipping it and using the drum brake bar to square it off nicely. Looking back, I probably could have done this with the drum brake bar. You can see in the first pic how it has to set into the hole in the drum.
After both hubs fit both drums, I cut the edge of the hub where it meets the drum as if it was a rotor to make sure it was smooth and true. Now the hubs should both be done for now.
Then I mounted the drum up, less the hubs for now. You have to cut a ridge, about 1/2", off of the outside lip of the brake drum so it clears the ford backing plate. It will still be plenty wide enough for the skinny ford brake shoes to make full contact area. You can see in the 4th pic where it was cut down to narrow the width of the inside of the drum, and making the edge of the steel insert even with the edge of the aluminum drum. If you have a stock buick drum it will be obvious where this was removed. I found it was easiest to just cut it away little by little, but taking heafty cuts on a fast cutting speed. You have to do it manually mostly, no power feed. You can't just try to dig in and cut the ridge off in one big ring, you'll jam up the machine.
Now back to the workbench to mount the hub to the drum. I wanted the ford bolt pattern. I staggered the hub in the drum, then used the holes in the hub as a guide to drill the holes in the drum. I used a bit that would just pass through the holes in the hub. These are for the lug studs.
Then from the inside out I used a smaller drill bit, but went through the buick pattern holes and drilled the hub. I tapped these holes and used short 1/2" fine thread bolts to actually hold the drum and hub together. I used all 5 so it would be balanced, I probably could have just used 3.
Then I installed the studs. With the assembly complete I mounted it back to the brake lathe as one piece and cut the drum to make sure it was true.
And this is what it should look like at that point, and it should be ready to bolt up and go. But if your ready for more work, you can polish them! See pic 5, you'll have lots of smoothing to do between those fins, but I'm sure it will look great done!
Now you look cool and have cool brakes too!
I did these for my dad's A. His car was already set up with 40 Ford brakes all around. He got the Buick drums and 46-48 hubs to do the conversion and keep his 40 brakes, just adding the buick drums.
With the ford hubs in the buick drum, you end up using all standard 40-48 Ford hardware. Spindles, brake shoes, backing plates, bearings, seals, the works. When you are done you should be able to just replace them with existing 40-48 drums and be good to go.
I was able to do all the needed machine work on a brake lathe.
First you need to get the ford hub to fit in the buick drum with no play. There's a flange on the hub that needs to be cut down to fit the hole in the buick drum. I mounted up the hub and cut the flange down, using a rotor bit at first, but I ended up flipping it and using the drum brake bar to square it off nicely. Looking back, I probably could have done this with the drum brake bar. You can see in the first pic how it has to set into the hole in the drum.
After both hubs fit both drums, I cut the edge of the hub where it meets the drum as if it was a rotor to make sure it was smooth and true. Now the hubs should both be done for now.
Then I mounted the drum up, less the hubs for now. You have to cut a ridge, about 1/2", off of the outside lip of the brake drum so it clears the ford backing plate. It will still be plenty wide enough for the skinny ford brake shoes to make full contact area. You can see in the 4th pic where it was cut down to narrow the width of the inside of the drum, and making the edge of the steel insert even with the edge of the aluminum drum. If you have a stock buick drum it will be obvious where this was removed. I found it was easiest to just cut it away little by little, but taking heafty cuts on a fast cutting speed. You have to do it manually mostly, no power feed. You can't just try to dig in and cut the ridge off in one big ring, you'll jam up the machine.
Now back to the workbench to mount the hub to the drum. I wanted the ford bolt pattern. I staggered the hub in the drum, then used the holes in the hub as a guide to drill the holes in the drum. I used a bit that would just pass through the holes in the hub. These are for the lug studs.
Then from the inside out I used a smaller drill bit, but went through the buick pattern holes and drilled the hub. I tapped these holes and used short 1/2" fine thread bolts to actually hold the drum and hub together. I used all 5 so it would be balanced, I probably could have just used 3.
Then I installed the studs. With the assembly complete I mounted it back to the brake lathe as one piece and cut the drum to make sure it was true.
And this is what it should look like at that point, and it should be ready to bolt up and go. But if your ready for more work, you can polish them! See pic 5, you'll have lots of smoothing to do between those fins, but I'm sure it will look great done!
Now you look cool and have cool brakes too!