When mounting 48 ford rear brakes on a model a rear end by flipping them side to side and upside down, where should the long shoes be located? The anchor pins will be at the top of the backing plates. Should the longer primary shoe be facing the front of the car? Thanks Beau
the reason for long shoes/short shoes is to save on the cost of materials. The rear shoe does all the work so its the long shoe. The front shoe forces the rear shoe into action. Theres nothing wrong with using long shoes front and rear. You can use short shoes on the rear, you just have less stopping power edit: this info applies to Bendix brakes
Yes, the longer shoe on the Lockheed non-servo brake is the leading forward shoe, along with the larger half of the wheel cylinder, because this shoe does more of the stopping in the forward direction.
So if I am correct Originally with the backing plate right side up with anchor pins at the bottom, the longer primary shoe should face the front of the car. Since I am planning on flipping my backing plates upside down and having the anchor pins at the top, I should have the longer primary shoes facing the rear of the vehicle. thanks Beau
there was a thread on this about a year ago maybe. It doesnt matter on an a as there so light compared to the car the brakes came off of. But there is a right way to install them.
The brakes are 1948 style non self energizing not self adjusting. The have solid anchor pins at the bottom of the backing plates that the shoes piviot on. As I have researched the 39-40 brakes have adjustable anchor pins the 47 48 style are fixed like the ones I have. These rear brakes are going on my 1931 pickup original banjo rear end. I have read that a very common thing to do was to flip the backing plates upside down and switch them side to side for clearance near spring perch. My question is when fliping upside down and side to side should I use the longer primary shoe toward the rear of the vehicle? Originaly the longer primary shoe would face front, but since mine will be upside doun I am thinking mine should face the rear. Does this make sense? Thanks Beau
Because the wheel cylinder will hit/be in the way of the spring perch. I've never done it but I wonder why you couldn't just turn them 90 degrees rather than 180 degrees? Will it affect their operation?
After re-reading your post and some re-thinking, I'm going to retract what I posted earlier. If you simply flipped/rotated the rear brakes 180, they would still operate the same, because wheel rotation remains the same. But if you flip AND swap side to side, the longer shoes and larger wheel cylinders should now face the rear, because wheel rotation has been reversed relative to brake operation and design. Clear as mud?
I think it has to do with both the angle of the e-Brake cable and the bleeding of the wheel cylinder. By turning it 180 and swithing drivers and passengers sides The e brake will still work it will just be up top instead of bottom. I should also be able to mount the wheel cylinders right side up so they can be bled correctly. I am wondering if I should have the longer primary shoe facing the rear of the vehicle because I feel that is the closest to originally as the way of rotation forces that will be applied while driving. Maybe I am wrong. If anyone has flipped backing plates could tell me how they did it and how the results were I would appreciate it. F-6Garagerat I really like your rear radius rod set up with the uniball. Do you have any more pictures of it? I am planning on using something very similar. I have some 40 ford rear rods. I will be building a rear trans crossmember and was thinking of using either a unibal or Jonny joint to connect the radius rods to. Did you end up making some sort of torque arm? If you did dou you have any pictures of that? I have a 31 pickup. Running the original 4 banger with a Charlie Yapp repop riely 2 port. I am using a Raul Casstillo chrysler 904 trans adapter and using the 904 automatic out of a slant six mopar. I am running 16 in. wire wheels 750 in rear 600 in front. The front axel is a 32-36 ford and I am using a posies reverse Eye spring. Front brakes are MT Car Products Lincoln style Self energizing. Thanks again Beau
Thank you. That is what I was thinking but was wanting to ask befor I put them all together. Thanks Again Beau
Clear as Mud :O ↑↓←→. Upside down, side to side, & bass akwards. This is a great Tech thread that deserves a Sticky & Diagram after Wright demonstrates the Right Wright way. I'm watchin & learnin.
Actually pretty simple; but confusing if you try to think about it too much. Just remember on Lockheed brakes that the leading shoes are longer and the larger side of the wheel cylinders actuates them.
I'm thinking these brakes are going to be hell to bleed, with the bleeders on the bottom. It's way to easy to trap air in the inverted wheel cylinder. .................Jack
I filled in the backing plate holes ,turned the plates a few degrees forward to clear the perch and redrilled mounting holes. Seems simpler to me. Bleeding and emergency brake stay the same. You also have to cut a slot in the backing to clear part of the perch and make a sheet metal cover for the slot. John
I've gathered up all the parts to do the conversion on my 31 and have been doing a lot of reading on this subject for awhile now and found, a guy on here that goes by Pist-in-Broke has the best setup IMHO ,he was sharing his setup on another post i was reading and was nice enough to answer even my questions,his a master cylinder setup is simple and easy, he is running his brakes flipped and upside down and says he has never had a problem with the brakes or bleeding them
It's quite logical really. A leading shoe is one where the rotating drum face starts at the piston end of the shoe and rubs along the shoe to the hinged end. This has the effect of digging in and increasing the friction. The other shoe has less effect. What's easier, dragging a plank of wood down the road or trying to push it along in front of you? Here's a few pictures of the ball joint bones I made up.
I thought I had it figured out. I was going to flip the backing plates side for side and run them upside down. I was planning on placing the longer primary shoe toward the rear instead of front. When I mocked things up I see that the wheel cylinders will not work as I had thought they would. I can not run them with the bleeders at the top because they will not be in the correct position for the shoes. It looks like I will be rotating the backing plates and drilling new holes for them to bolt up. Any one who has went this route do you rotate them in a certain direction. Clockwise vs counterclockwise? I was looking at the passenger side and was thinking of rotating it counter clockwise so the wheel cylinder would be at about the 10 oclock position. Thanks Beau
After reading your last post, I figured out I must not have correctly remembered what we had done, it was 30 some years ago, so I dug out a backing plate and wheel cylinder. I figured out that we must have taken a large half round file to the big wheel cylinder hole and filed on the one side until the wheel cylinder bolt holes lined up again. This kept the wheel cylinder centerline in the right place.
Hi Beau I'm doing the same setup on my A Roadster at the moment, and just went out and played around with both adjustable anchor and fixed anchor backing plates on A housings My backing plates fit onto standard A housings, but have interference between the brake line and the shock ball. However they fit just fine on another set of housings I have with the shock ball and tab cut off and the spring perch smoothed off Interestingly, front wheel cylinders seem to fit with the shock ball in place, as the hose slips past with minor grinding of the ball tab ......... but I don't reckon a dog bone would fit Since I am running 48 shock mounts and tube shocks, I don't need the shock ball, so I'm running the housings with no ball and tab and with stock backing plate orientation I'm using front backing plates with handbrake levers added, and with 48 Chev brake cables ....... but rear plates fit the same So why do you need to rotate yours ...... are you running lever shocks and/or want to retain the shock ball and tab ?
It is possible to use the rear backing plates without rotating.I rotated mine,but here is a build where he did not.Also has lots of other good info. LINK https://sites.google.com/site/mrtexascitrus/home/hydraulicbrakes John
Search the tech archive with the word "brakes" there is a very interesting article on there with pics. Helped a shit load.
I ended up cutting off the shock ball also looks like it will work fine. I will also be using tube shocks in the rear.
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