The 40 hubs must be machined down on the OD to fit in the bottom of the cone shape of the center of the Buick hub. The pictures of 48 hubs would show the hub hanging over the edge of the drum. Cutting the hub means the outer support on the wheel is not making contact with anyting as the drum is angling away. 40 hubs can be drilled for the small patern but must be spotfaced as the surface is angled. I am very much concerned with folks trying to use the 40 hubs and not knowing the problems. The spacing is off in every dimesion stack I have done so it is possible but difficult to get the drum to cover the shoes completly. I have seen assemblies on cars where you could look down at the drum and see the shoes.
Andy, in your dimension stacks, are you considering 40's ford backing plates or F2/F250 backing plates?
This bears repeating for emphasis. Skip this step, and that popping sound you hear will be the drum breaking into numerous pieces. Ask me how I know.
I can second that, I broke a drum this way!!! The hub was pressed from the top and bottom when made. This expanded the edge of the hub again the hole in the drum. You will need to grind the hub slightly to releave and it will come out , if you don't do this you will break the drum.
What if you are wanting to run 40 hubs with the big 5x5.5 pattern, 40 backing plates and spindles and 66 Buick drums? Is it better to run the 40 hubs or the buick hubs? Thanks RustyNCA
I would only run the 46-8 hubs.The buick drum does not have a big enough mounting surface to contact the outer support nubs on the Ford wheels. The 46-8 hubs are considerably bigger in diameter. You could make a support plate that was the reguired diameter to support the wheel and put it on the outside of the drum. The 40 hub would still have to be greatly reduced in diameter to go inside the Buick drum. The new support plate would only be clamped at the inside and would need to be pretty thick. The whole thing is not as nice as using the 46-8 hub.
Thanks for the help Andy. Ended up going with the 40 hub. And yes, we had to machine the hub down just a small amount and made a sleeve to locate the drum on the hub . Yep, after looking at it, we made a 8" dia spacer to run on the outside of the drum to support the wheel. Hopefully I will get to putting it all back together this weekend. We will see, our new 3 week old son seems to keep distracting me One side on, one to go... well, and get the finished spacers. Cheers RustyNCA
I ran the hub on the outside of the drum and welded a spacer on the inside with a grade 8 bolts I bought the pair from Wilson Welding in Texas. Frenchy
Here is our finished product. 90 fin drums on an early 40 Ford axle and backing plates. Seems like it brakes better than with the 40 drums, but I am sure that is because I spent more time adjusting the brakes in this time.
A little well intended spam. When it comes to Buick drum conversions there is no better authority than Bob Wilson of Wilson Welding and Machine. Bob can machine your 46-48 hubs for the Buick drums and drill any bolt pattern you want. He also sells his own manufacture hubs. He has done a couple of sets of hubs for me and several for friends as well. We are all satisfied customers.
The backing plates I use in the front are from a 1947 Lincoln Zephyr rear and I welded the parking brake where the cable was you can see in the picture some JB weld was use to finish off. Frenchy
Other than the E-brake stuff (these trucks had drive line E-brakes) '60s F-250 shoes, wheel cyls, spring kits, and '50s adjusters are available. The odd ball adjuster spring is sold by Gothom Auto. Look to '70s Chev wagon and Caddy for E-brake levers and links or modify the the more common 11" pieces.
50s and 60s Buicks with 12" rear brakes will have usable parking brake parts also. I rebuilt a set using pieces from the rear of a 1954 Buick Special. Otherwise like Rich said everything should be available from most auto parts stores still. One thing to be aware of is that GM 12" brakes had the anchor pin about 1/8" higher than the Ford trucks. Make sure that you look up the shoes for the truck not a car. Everything but the shoes is pretty much universal on any 12" Bendix setup.
Didn't see your lack of anchor pins. Kinda one-of pieces. Probably can machine a pair of '50s 11" Bendix pins to fit the shoes and weld a spacer on to get them lined up. Should be just enough room for the special washer, a toothed lock washer (instead of a split washer) and a regular nut.
I'll have to look, I may have dimensions for the F2 anchor pin. I made a set when I converted my F2 rears to adjustable anchor. If you have some made I'd make them out of something decent though. I made mine out of 4140 steel. Didn't heat treat it but used good stuff. I'll look tomorrow. It's not a hard part to make if you have access to a lathe. These pictures show one of the ones I made. I used the nut and special off another brake.
You might ck. with alchemy here on the hamb he has anchor bolts avaiable, not certain if they are for round hole mount or the double "D' shaped hole such as you have.
Well I’ll be checking g this thread again when I get to my project. However, in the original post there are numerous times where something is followed by something like 1837# or whatever which I find confusing. Am I reading it wrong, is punctuation wrong, or what?
Those odd numbers are usually a sign that the "text" of the post was "copied and pasted" into the message. Just ignore them.
Those pins are number H1414-2; do some research, there are some stupid prices out there for these. That purple spring (which is actually part of self-adjusting hardware) won't really do the job as the adjuster spring the correct one is 1D-2049 and goes between the upper holes. Some IHC brakes have the spring below the adjuster; but holes are located a little lower and the spring is shorter than the purple spring.
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