Projects Alienbaby17's Model A Truck Project

Hey Ron,

This is a treat. I remember you from the old Traditionals' forum. Beau and I have shared and discussed your exceptional build plans over the past couple months. Thanks for your input and advice.

I can't say I disagree with your sentiment regarding the F1 spindles. I know it would probably be a lot easier to just pick up a set of the '37-'48 spindles and get the adapters to mount the F1 brakes on them.

However...I'm going to try to use these F1 spindles anyway.
I got these spindles with the front brakes. They were basically free and I didn't
have any spindles to start with so that was a BIG plus. The F1 brakes were engineered and made for these spindles without any modifications of bearings, etc. that also appeals to me. Yes, the spindles will require modification and the use of aftermarket steering arms but at this point I'm willing to give it a shot. If I ruin the spindles or it doesn't work out for some reason it's not a big deal to replace them with the earlier style spindles later. Right now we're pretty slow at the shop and I have more time than money so I don't mind giving it a whirl.

There's also a little part of me that wants to do it just because so many people say it is a bad idea.

I've been modifying the spindles at work and will post some photos soon.

Thanks again for the 'heads up' regarding the upcoming swap. I've been 'itching' to hit one for a while now.

 

Not to beat a dead horse but Speedway sells the bearings and seals as a kit now for about $40. I've got a pair of '46 spindles here somewhere I can offer at a good price. The only thing you'll have to do is grin a little on the top of the spindle and bolt the whole thing together.

Ron

 

The rules would say use car spindles. The fun is figuring out that the F1 spindles go right on, parts can be purchased locally, and others say don't do it.

 

OK!! I give, I give!!!! You might want to check the camber on the pick up axle vs. the model A axel. I'm not sure if they are the same.

Hey Jay, we should set up a meet at the swap meet. Would be great to meet you and Beau.

Ron

 

Sounds good. PM me before the swap. I'd like to make it but can't always commit to those kind of things this far in advance.

And now regarding the F1 spindle swap:

There is a lot of misinformation circulating regarding the use of these spindles on the earlier axles. In an attempt to clear up some of that my friend, Beau (who is also doing this swap) started this thread, http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=690128.

That thread finally, clearly answers a lot of questions about this swap.
One of the biggest questions addressed regards king pin inclination (camber). The 1937-'48 car spindles have a king pin inclination of 8 degrees. The F1 spindles also have a king pin inclination of 8 degrees. Therefore they should work just fine.

The king pin diameter is also the same on the F1 spindles and the earlier car spindles. I believe that the F1 kingpin is slightly longer so the F1 kingpins will have to be used to do this swap.

I will say right now that the above information is only believed to be true for the F1 spindles. The F1 trucks were made from 1948-1952. The F100 trucks (another popular brake swap) made from 1953-1956 ARE NOT the same as the earlier F1 spindles. I am not offering any information about swapping those spindles.

One of the biggest complications with using theses spindles is that they do require some modification.

Here are the 'unmolested' F1 spindles.





The spindle on the left in the photos is the 'tricky' driver's-side spindle that is the challenging one to modify. The passenger-side spindle simply requires the 'arm' to be cut off and the remaining part of the spindle smoothed out.

With a little work the spindles looked like this.



I've seen examples of the driver's spindle worked to look nicer than mine but I'm happy with where mine is at. I think once it's painted and has a steering arm in front of it it will be just fine for my purposes. Also the material around the kingpin could start to get a little thin if it was shaved down enough to completely round it to match the other spindle. I think I'm content with it.

 

Jay it looks like you've been busy since you picked up the parts! They are looking good, nice work.

 

Jay, you should add these photos to the thread about the swap.

They look good! We need to get out there and have them reamed now!

 

They look better in person. After seeing the photos I was thinking of going back after the driver's spindle a bit more...we'll see.

I'm going to get my kingpin set tomorrow. Let's put together a plan to get these reamed ASAP!

 

Nice work Jay

Ron

 

I like where this is heading. Going to keep an eye this build.

 

I installed my kingpins and F1 spindles today.
It went pretty well...overall.

I ended up reaming my own kingpin bushings. A friend of Beau's actually had an old Montgomery Wards kingpin reamer that he'd found on eBay a few years ago. He had us up to his place and let us use his shop and tools to ream our spindles. The tool did a pretty good job. It wasn't anything that impressive technologically speaking but as Beau's friend repeatedly reminded us, "This is just old tractor technology.".

We ended up putting the reamer into a drill and using that to ream the kingpins. I was a little nervous about going off-center at first but both of mine turned out really well and I was pretty pleased that I did it myself.

Once the kingpin bushings were in and reamed I painted the spindles. One thing I found today when I went to install them was that even the small amount of overspray that got onto the bushings was enough to make the kingpins too tight to go in. I ended up having to remove the paint to get the kingpins in.

A couple of notes on installing kingpins:
The felt washer goes under a small cup at the top of the spindles.
Shims will probably come with your kingpin set. These may or may not be necessary depending on how the spindles feel once everything is assembled. I ended up using one on one side but the other was tight enough without using any shims.
The thrust bearing will need to be packed with grease before installing it. Also the bearing should be installed with the open side down. The logic behind this is that the grease from the lower zerk will work its way up into the bearing.
Another note on the thrust bearing is that the location is generally below the axle beam but not always. I'd suggest putting it wherever the old one was.
It should also be noted that the kingpin notch should line up with the hole for the locking bolt in the axle.

I was extremely careful to make sure I put everything together correctly. Unfortunately in paying attention to all of the little details I missed the giant obvious fact that I installed the spindle upside down. So I got to do it again.

In the end it worked out pretty well.



Grease zerks will go in once I trial-fit my steering arms and know what will work.

I hope to have the front brakes done by the end of the weekend.

 

I had to relocate the top zerk to fit the sling shot style arm; but a loop kind would have worked OK.

 

That is beautiful work on those spindles, Rich.

I'd been holding off on ordering my steering arms until I knew how much drop I needed. I saw Speedway sells arms with a 1 3/4" drop and with a 3 3/4" drop. I'm planning on splitting the stock Model A wishbone up front and wasn't sure which would work best for my application.

Are those the 3 3/4" drop steering arms, Rich?

 

Nice work Jay. Looks like this is a very afordable conversion for a lot of folks. Thanks for posting it.

Ron

 

The arms are the deeper drop and I am pretty sure they are from Speedway.
Sometimes the yoke portion that bolts to the spindle gets pretty close to
where the bend starts on dropped axle; but it looks like your's would clear.

F-1 spindles are a good option, when using F-1/F-100 brakes, if you already have them and know you are going to use bolt-on arms. If you had to buy both the F-1 spindles and the arms, you could probably pick up a set of '37-'41 round-backs or '42-'48 square-backs for the same money and bend the stock arms to clear.

 

I have never cared for the Super Bell type arms. Just don't the idea of a blind hole on suspension parts. Chassis Engineering offers tie rod arms tha are bolt through in 2 drops.

Ron

 

The Chassis Eng. also arms give you more axle clearance since they drop below
the king pin. Makes a difference on some dropped axles. They have the same overall drop as the other style arms.

 

Those Chassis Engineering arms look nice. Once I get the brakes on the passenger side (backing plate getting painted now) I'm going to figure that stuff out next.

And speaking of brakes...I got this finished up tonight.



Here's what I found regarding front brake part numbers. All of these numbers are CURRENT Napa parts available NOW. I got all of these parts from my local Napa store.

Front wheel cylinders:
Left side: UP 9090
Right side: UP 9091

Front brake shoes: UP UP10AR
(This part number is for the premium shoes. These feature riveted rather than bonded linings. These were only about $6 more than the bonded shoes.)

The brake hardware kit (misc. springs etc.) is not available directly for this application. I'd read various places online that some of the later Ford truck kits would work for this application. The shoes on these trucks are the same into at least the very early 60's so I assumed the hardware kit would also be the same or VERY similar. Here is what I found.

The self adjuster screw spring (the one at the very bottom just above the self adjuster) looks to be exactly the same as the original F1 part.

Self adjuster screw spring: UP 80503
(Side note there are four springs included in this kit. You will only need two.)

Here is what I did to get the rest of the pieces I needed to complete my F1 front brakes. I bought a front brake spring "hardware kit" for a 1964 F100. The Napa part number is UP 2247. A typical "hardware kit" should contain all of the springs and clips, etc. necessary to service the entire left and right brakes on a front or rear axle. This individual hardware kit WILL NOT complete your hardware needs to service your F1 front brakes. You will need TWO of these kits. Each kit will give you the shoe hold springs, 'cups' and nails to do both sides. The upper springs you need, known as the, "front return springs" are included in this kit but there are only two per kit that will match your original springs. This is the problem with this particular hardware kit. You will need two of these springs for each side. That is why you will need to buy TWO of these kits to complete your F1 front brakes.

There is probably a cheaper and maybe even an easier way to complete your hardware needs for your F1 brakes but this is what worked for me. Each of these spring kits cost about $7. You can buy the two hardware kits and the self adjuster screw spring kit for under $20 and probably get them today from almost any Napa store in the country.

One last thing I will include are the part numbers for the wheel or 'grease' seals that go in the back of the hubs.

Wheel seal: NOS 17599

One part missing from this list is the brake drums. They are not readily available from the common parts suppliers. They are available from vintage Ford specialty sources but they are NOT cheap ($80-$100 each). I'm hoping I can machine mine or find a good original set to work with.

Hope these numbers can help someone else out.

 

Very Nice! Someday I will find my Model A pickup....I know it's out there....

 

You just saved me some sleepless nights!

Nice work! I can't wait to see it rolling.

 

I didnt pay attention to how I pulled mine apart. Which backing plate goes on which side? I thought the wheel cylinders would be vertical.

Is that how you did it?

 

The wheel cylinders are rolled slightly to the rear when the plates are on the correct side,
also if you put the plates on the wrong side you'll find that the fitting on the wheel cylinder points directly into the kingpin, more so on square-back spindles. Most of the time the backing plates are marked "R" and "L" in the part number stamping.

 

Thanks Rich. Jay and I ended up figuring that out later on.

Jay has some findings on the springs too. I used Auto Zone H7225 (6.99) kit for some of the parts. Two more top springs (brown in the kit) and Jay's bottom springs were needed to complete the set-up. Jay is picking up two more kits today so we can nab two more of the brown springs.

Thanks again Jay for the two bottom springs.

 

This is getting good! Love the scrounging of all the parts to make a killer truck. Its comming to gether, keep us posted!

 

I've made some corrections to my original post above that listed the brake part numbers. I did this after discovering I'd made at least one mistake in my assembly. I'm sure it won't be my last mistake, but at least I am learning a little bit more every day.

Here is what happened...

Beau came by the house last night. He had a couple questions for me regarding his build and wanted to take a look at how I'd done a few things. The main thing I think we learned is that two heads are better than one.

One thing I think is an important detail regarding the F1 brake swap is that the backing plates ARE NOT the same side-to-side. There is a definite 'left' and 'right' side to them. The differences are rather subtle but effect the positioning of the wheel cylinder so it is important to get correct. Thanks again to 'Rich B' for doing some clarifying regarding this.

Only one of my backing plates had part numbers on it (at least that I could read). The right side backing plate read, "Bendix" in one spot and then across from that "48952-R". This was for the right side, hence the "R" in the part number. If there had been an "L" anywhere on the driver's-side backing plate the whole thing would have been obvious. I had installed mine correctly but it should be something to keep in mind for anyone else that might try this swap.

We also learned that I had purchased a couple of wrong brake springs. Although I had been very confident that I had them exactly right Beau pointed out something pretty obvious that I had overlooked and I fixed it this evening when I got home from work. All of my above listed brake part numbers are now correct.

 

You can get the four retract springs in a kit Brake Best part number H111 for $3.69 and the hold down spring kit Brake Best part number H4020-2 for $3.29 both from O'Reillys.

 

Thanks for the information, Rich. That would have saved me a couple of bucks.

I cross-referenced the numbers you provided to Napa part numbers. Maybe it will help someone else out in the future.

Brake Best H111 = Napa UP 82486

Brake Best H4020-2 = Napa UP 80409

 

F1 Shock Mount Modification:

I am definitely not the first person to do this modification. It is covered pretty thoroughly in the Bishop/Tardel book. The basic idea involves taking 1948-1952 Ford truck front shock mounts and adapting them to an earlier frame so that tube shocks can be used. To do this the shock mounts are typically modified slightly for use on the earlier frames.

This photo shows the cleaned and modified F1 truck shock mounts next to an original unmodified pair.



These shock mounts are still fairly common and easy to get although the prices tend to be anywhere from $50-$100 for a nice set. Reproductions are available from places but they are around $80. For that kind of money I'd rather have the originals so that is what I ended up buying.

I was initially a little bit leary about cutting these up but knew it had to be done. I began the dissection at the shop using a pneumatic cut-off wheel and had them in pieces in no time.

The shock mounts, once modified, can be bolted directly to the Model A frame. However, before this is done two front crossmember rivets on each side must be removed and their holes enlarged to 7/16". Initially my plan was to just cut the heads off of the rivets and hammer them through with a punch. I did not have much success with this. Beau happened to stop by as I was working on this and suggested drilling them out instead. That turned out to be an awesome suggestion. I bought a very small drill bit to make a 'pilot hole' with and then used one of those 'stepped' drill bits to do the rest. I went slowly and used plenty of cutting oil and it went very well. Once the rivets were out I bolted the two pieces of the shock arm to the frame. I did this to insure that once they were re-assembled that they would fit correctly. I used a level and made the top of the shock arm parallel with the top of the frame. Shock mount hole centers are 2 3/8" apart. Then I beveled the ends and tacked and welded them back together in their new shape.

In this photo you can see which cross-member rivet holes were removed for mounting holes.



After lots of welding, grinding and filing I was pretty happy with how they turned out (see first photo). I decided not to get obsessive about polishing them. I like all of the little nicks and imperfections in them. I think it adds some character.

Edit: After initially posting this someone with lots more knowledge and experience in this realm politely pointed out a minor problem with my thought process. He pointed out that my bolt-on lower shock mounts are square with the axle which is tilted back several degrees for caster. He made a suggestion that I lean the mounts back slightly so that they are on the same plane with the axle to remove any potential stress or binding from the bushings. Once he pointed that out it seemed so obvious. Once I get the rest of the front end figured out I think I will give the upper mounts just a little 'tweak' with the torch to correct this. I'm very glad to have people like that looking over my shoulder. Thanks!

 

Looks like its going to be a neat little A-truck. You almost inspire me to keep mine. But, sadly its got to go. I'll look forward to seeing yours finished, though.

Here's mine just for the hell of it.

 

Thanks, Michelle. Looking at that picture makes me think two things; one being, 'nice truck' and the other being, 'Man, I miss California!'