Yes, I know this subject has been beat to death, but this is a new problem. I have put many 40-48 hydraulic brakes on early Fords including Model A. In fact I had no problem with the original hubs and drums on my model A axle. Problem arose when I had to heat and cut the hub off the axle to rebuild the rear end. Yes, I did have a proper puller. Yes, I tried everything known or published to get it off before I butchered it. So now I have the new drums and original hubs and put it all back together with the axle shims, just like I have had them for the past 5 years. When I tighten it all up the wheels wont turn. For years I have done this with using beer cans for shim material. I just took the new drums (which were 0.0200 out of round) and removed the inner lip thinking this would fix it but they still freeze up solid when tightened. I cant be the only person with this problem. There has to be a solution without spending $295 each for special hubs. I'm open for suggestions and comments from others with similar problems. Thanks
i hope you mean 20 thou out, not 200. that said, where did you buy the drums? that said, you are on the right track, that is figure out where they need clearance and grind some more off. the new hubs should have the shoulder for the drum in the same place as the A hub, and cutting the old one off didnt do any thing to the axle or housing, so its gotta be just the outer edge of the drum. there is usually quite a bit of extra space there before you would have shoes hitting the outside. spray some paint on the edge of the shoe, and the edge of the drum to see whats hitting
^^^You are right, I left a zero out after the decimal point and its now edited. I got the drums at Sacramento Vintage Ford. I wish I had saved the old drums but I got tired of sweeping around them and threw them out a couple of weeks ago. Since I just milled a bunch (thats exactly 3.5 bits) off the inside rim I wonder if the inside valley is what is hitting the edge of the backing plate. I know some people have milled the backing plates but I've never had to do this. I might try to pull the drums and hubs off the stock coupe project sitting outside. I'll keep working on it as time allows and post what I find.
regarding Stillrunners comment: I would never go with a repro anything over a nice original. If anyone has some nice originals I'll take them in a hearbeat.
The drums problem is the inner lip of the drum hitting the backing plate. Since it was the weekend and I needed to get it rolling I added another axle shim, tightened the axle nut to 120 ft/lbs and all is good. The lip on the backing plate is not a problem. My advice to others using the Vintage drums on a model A would be to have the inner lip on the drum machined down enough to get clearance. Thanks to those who offered suggestion.
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