I was wondering if anybody ever put Chevy spindles, the '49-'53 ones, onto a Ford axle. I don't know of any I beam axles available for these spindles and the setup sure would be trick. My concern would not be getting the kingpins to work, that would be easy, but the kingpin inclination, which is probably not the same. The reason for doing this would be to have the chevy wheels, without adapters and be able to use my Olds caps on this setup. Gentlemen?
I've always wondered why nobody drills hubs... close up the holes if need be, drill holes.. done... no need for adapters... on most applications it'd work fine.
It woudl be a lot simpler to redrill the hubs and drums for the bolt pattern you want or fit chevrolet style hubs to the Ford Spindles. QUOTE=Left Turn;6184096]I've always wondered why nobody drills hubs... close up the holes if need be, drill holes.. done... no need for adapters... on most applications it'd work fine.[/QUOTE] As far as I know guys do it all the time except on the hubs that you don't have room to redrill the holes.
I have drilled several in the past with no problems and it's a fast operation once you get your index set up.
other than drilling out the axel,youll also have to heat and bend the ends out at the top to get the camber correct,because the wheels will lay in at the top.i did it to an a model truck i had and built a homemade jig with a steel wheel then two bubbies and a torch and a lot of work later it worked.would not do it agian just buy or find the right parts lots easier.
53 sled, Speedways spindles are cut for mustang rotors, total bullshit for what I'm doing. They do sell an axle for this application but it's only a three iinch drop, (actually about 2 3/8", I had one once), and it's a tube, which in my opinion, does not look right on an early car. The Chevy brakes are a real nice setup and readily available. To get equal stopping power in a Ford setup would require going to the F-100 type, the self energizing MT stuff, (big bucks!), or the non self energizing '40 style parts and redrill the hubs, which is actually easy. Blackie answered my question about the inclination angle and moving the axle around doesn't sound too tuff. Anybody Know what a good spec is on the kingpin angle?
Yes I have. We used a reamer on the Ford axle and fitted the Chevy kingpins. Inclination must not have been too far off. Don't remember doing anything to the axle to fix it. BTW, backing plates and hubs/drums through 57 fit the earlier spindles.
Not correct. Speedway sells them both ways. They have the early 49-54 type drums setup for their aXLES, the mustang setup, and also a metric disc setup that's typical 5x4 3/4 Chevy too. I have the last one under my car with Chevy wheels on it.
Yes I done it back in the 80ts The angle is off, you will have to bend the axle. You could take it to a truck ailment shop and have it bent if you do not want to try it.
Did it in the 60`s. Had bushings made for the ford kingpin in the chevy spindle.Kingpin boss needs to be macined down to fit the ford kingpin bearing. A trip to real alignment shop to bend the axle and your all set. Better brakes and the chevy bolt pattern.
Thanks for the help guys. You have answered my question with as to if it can be done. I don't need the Speedway spindles as the stockers are available everywhere with so many of them being removed from under early Chevys for either clip jobs or MII setups. The purpose of this exercise is to run the drum brakes with a beam axle. If I can put the Chevy brakes up front I'll end up with the same bolt pattern and I can use Chevy wheels which accept my origional Fiestas. I'll ream / machine the axle to fit the Chevy kingpins, using the SS brakes bearing kingpin setups and adjust the axle to compensate for the difference in kingpin angle. Essentially all I have to do is adjust the axle to get the Chevy spindle to match the Ford spec at rest. This should be good!
Not to open up a whole new can of worms, but in a thread I had going a couple weeks ago, this info was posted: http://www.droppedaxles.com/TECH_ARTICLES.html Which would seem to indicate that pickup spindles had a kingpin inclincation only 1 degree off from the Ford angle. Could be that the way people did successful conversions back in the day was by using the pickup spindles rather than the car ones?
Did this on my truck. Inclination is way off! The tops of the tires on mine were setting in at the top about 1"-2". Went down the road awesome, but would definatly wear the tires over a short time if you never corrected the angles. If I had to do it over I would not do it. It's better to build it right the 1st time around!
The 49-54 Chevy car spindles have a 4 degree inclination. The 41-59 Chevy 3100 spindles have a 7 degree inclination. They both have .866 dia kingpins. The stock 1928-35 Ford axles had a 7 degree inclination. In 1936 Ford went to 8 degree inclination. Ford had 8 degree inclination until 1952. In 1953-64 Ford went to 4 degree inclination. Hope this helps you guys. www.droppedaxles.com
I have thought bout this myself and im going the easy route. Speedway makes a disc brake conversion kit for 37 to 48 ford spindles that use gm disc brake rotors with a 4 3/4 pattern.
If your only If your only purpose is to run drum brakes with a I beam axle, then you're creating a lot of work for nothing. The '49-'54 Chevy hubs/drums will bolt right on a '49-'59 Chevy truck I beam axle and convert it to 5x4.75" pattern drums. I've done a lot of Chevy truck axles in cars and used the early car drums on them.
Thanks for the reply. This thread is about three years old and what I ended up doing was putting early '70's impala wagon guts into the Ford backing plates. The idea of the exercise was to get self energizing brakes with a 12" drum. This worked very well and stopped like a monster. I did the same thing on the rear using the factory E hardware as well. I did need to use a holdoff valve on the front brakes to keep the front from locking up early, but other than that, nothing special. I personally don't like the look of the discs up front but I admit they do excel from a function point and generally cost about half the cost of doing the drums right.
Have an undropped Ford I beam axle removed from a 36 Ford. Has the Chevrolet spindles and brakes on it. I do not know how it was done as far as king pin modification. but the axle was removed from a running 5 window coupe that received a dropped axle, disc brakes and unsplit wishbone. Jack
I agree that there is the nostalga look that goes along with the drum brakes and on period rods they do look good.. A friend of mine has a 37 ford truck rat rod with dirt track late model quick change rear end and front brakes and wheels. Didnt think i would like it but must admit it does look tuff
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