Hey guys, my T Roadster has a 9 inch rear end in it. I'm trying to determine what I've got. The brake drums are incorrect and I want to replace them with the right ones as well as find the correct axle seals. The axle measures 57-1/2" flange to flange. There are dimples in the back cover and it has a drain plug. Bolt pattern is 5x4.5. The brakes are 11"x 2-1/4". There is currently a 1/8" thick spacer between the hub flange and brake drum. Without the spacer the drums rub on the backing plates. I've attached a few pics. Can anyone tell me what exactly I have here?
early ones had 1-3/4 or 2" wide shoes, depending on car or wagon. (I had both at one time) Look on rockauto.com, at listings for various 1960s ford cars. Some of the drums have quite a bit of dimension inf on the "info" button. Good luck...seems some of the early drums are not being made, and dimension info is also hard to find
The drain plug identifies the housing as a '57-58, the drain was gone in '59. Personally, if the brakes work good I wouldn't worry about it. That spacer doesn't hurt anything, and the drums look like typical mid-late '60s Ford rear drums off a larger car. If the drum registers on the axle hub (fits snugly), it's no newer than '68 as Ford increased the hub size in '69. As far as the axle seals go, on the '50s-60s rears your choice is small bearing or large bearing axles. The large bearing is 3.150" in diameter, the small is 2.834" and that will dictate the seal size.
Unless someone has changed it you should have a small bearing axle housing. That and if you can get it out without destroying it the seal should have a number on it. As far as the drum goes IF and yes that is a big IF there is enough surface on the inside of the drum that the shoes haven't been riding on you should be able to get someone to cut down the inside lip of the drum a quarter inch on a drum lathe and get rid of the spacers. Rock Auto shows 57 Ford front brakes to be 11-1/32 x 2-1/4 and rears to be 11x 1-3/4. 1957 FORD FAIRLANE 4.8L 292cid V8 Brake Shoe | RockAuto They don't show 57 rear drums nor does anyone else I can find.
Could be a big bearing. The '57-58 wagons, Ranchero and 'other' HD applications got the big bearing, and some of those also used 11 X 2 brakes in the rear. But the OP says he's got 2.25" shoes, so somebody has been home-brewing this. Ford used various shoe widths over the years, up to 2.5" wide (and drums to match) in the rear of some cars. In a way it's better because the later-model wider stuff is more available. 2.25" X 11 rear drums were used on the '66 Fairlane Wagons, although it's apparently common that Ford used a 2.5" drum for both size shoes depending on the model. If the spacer gives clearance, I wouldn't worry about it. There's also two different axle offsets (the distance from the bearing face to the drum flange) related to the bearing size and you can have issues mixing brake parts between them. Very few of the parts books show this specifically, it's easy to get confused. Generally speaking, you want to keep the drums/backing plates together, and they should match the axle type. Take Rock Auto's info with a grain of salt; it's not always right or complete.
Ford Axle History and Identification: Ford Differentials (diyford.com) Ford 9 inch Tech - MalibuRacing.com ford 9 inch bearing id - Google Search
For the applications, yeah, do your homework. But you can probably believe the published specifications for a part, even if it's not really the right one for the listed application.
Thanks for the help so far. It's really looking like this is just a bunch of stuff thrown together. The backing plates have a provision for a parking brake cable if that's a useful clue. I'll dig around on Rockauto and see what I can find
The Jalopy Journal
