Wide Five Help. Adapting front and rear.

UH OH! Stike what I said about not wanting something non-functional... that is pretty cool looking and I will have caps to cut up too to donate to the cause! I think this may be a good solution! Thanks for posting that. Is that a photochop or did you just do that?

 

Are you running wheel covers?

 

I agree with you on that one, I almost didn't want to mention it. Using a cut down Ford cap seems like less of a sin and really doe's almost have the same shape as the wide five drum, just without the center hub sticking out.

 

BTW... I meant to ask you if that black rim with the speedway adapter bolted right up? Did it or did you have to modify something for the early Ford wide five pattern? Wasn't sure if they would be the same...

 

No photoshop, I just ran out to the barn and laid the wheel on the cap and took a pic.
And yes I'm planning on running caps on mine. But I may just make a set of inner covers like this too, I had thought about not running caps and it was the addapters that were forcing it. If you give it a shot post some pictures.

-Jeff

 

It's the right pattern, but like I said earlier I took out the 5/8 screw in studs and pressed in some half inch ones so that the caps would clear the lug nuts.

 

Cool! Good to know! Thanks for the input and for running around taking pictures! Much appreciated!

Did the 36-39 drums come as one piece ever or were they all a two-piece design? If you have a picture of a one piece, please post it. Thanks!

 

Here's a '38 drum (one piece) not sure how the '36 drums differ...but they do.

 

Are the ones I posted earlier one piece or two piece? I thought they were two piece, but maybe they're not? Can someone tell me... ahh... like maybe the guy who owns them... paging JohnnyFast... JohnnyFast...

 

I'm sort of carrying on to myself here... sorry. Just getting more and more questions... I guess one of the questions I need answered is what the hell they did to the late thirties hubs mounted to these Buick drums. Did they just cut the drum off, hog out the front of the buick drum, line them up so they're coincentric and then bolt them together?

 

Yeah, what's the difference with the '36 model? Still haven't identified my rusty old parts, they're mechanical though...

Thanks

Great thread

 

OK, First the 45 fin Buick drum will adapt to the Ford wide five front hub with no problem and adapt to 12 " brakes with a slight amount of machine work . Just requires removal of the Buick hub, facing and indexing and drilling drum for the wide Ford 1/2 lug stud pattern. The Ford hub requires the use of the 37-39 two piece style hub and drum.The Ford hub studs will have to be removed and replaced with longer studs. It may require you to use 1 3/4" shoes rather than the 2" Buicks. You may be able to use the 39-48 backing plates, the Buicks backing plates modified or another later year Ford pickup backing plate based upon the new center line drum dimension.

The rears are a problem, if you wish to run a late model rear end with pull out axles. If you want to use the stock early ford rear end it is relatively the same procedure as the front.

If you want to use a late style pull out axle in a small quickchange be prepared to spend about $3500 on this conversion. Since most of the cost is the quickchange, it it still will require special parts, a little bit of additional machine work and measurement to index the drum brakes correctly to the brake drum. If you deside to use a ford 8" or 9" it will be much less costly.

The Buick brakes can be adapted to the wide five stock car hub adapter with a circular design and are available thru Bicknell Racing in New York, you will have to specify the bolt pattern of the axle and request that the adapters have 1/2" studs instead if the 5/8" race car size. These hub adapters are used in the IMCA and street stock cl***es to convert later rear ends to wide 5 stock car style wheels. Most of these styles are double drilled axle mounts though. The main problem in this attempt is to get the drum and adapter to back space correctly and center on the brake shoe backing plate. This also may will require backing plate spacers or a pretty good knowledge of the design of 12" car and truck backing plates to see what can be swapped and redrilled to work.

There is no way to redrill or machine the Ford wide five to late model axle bolt pattern as it requires you to machine out the bearing race and does not leave enough material to safely work with.

Hope this answer some of your question.

 

The fronts are one-piece. The rears are two-piece.

 

yea.that's what i was going to say.

thanks for all your info.

-danny

 

I spent a little time on Winters' site this morning. They have a "V8 Quick Change" unit (their ***le) that is set up for late model brakes (disc or Ford drum brake) that uses Ford big bearing axles and is all ready to go. Grant it this axle is not cheap, like you say, but is ready to go and is super nice. So then I address the later Ford brakes to wide five adaptation. I just need to research which brakes should be used and what kind of adapters I can find. Seems to be plenty of adapters available to pull it off.

Thanks for your reply and input ****! Much appreciated!

So now I need to ask... who's car/truck is this and does anyone have anymore pictures including what's on the *** end of this thing... I see Buick drums with 37-39 hubs used to mount those wide five wheels... I want to know more...

 

Yes I ran the stock centers of wheels [widened to 6"] and stock 39 p***enger caps.....

 

Here's a thought. Take this wide-5 rear drum (the two-piece one) and take it apart. Discard the center hub and push a 9" Ford Bronco axle thru the drum part. Bolt the axle flange to the drum as it is in the photo. With luck, that bolt circle will be 5 on 5 1/2"....same as the Bronco.

The problem would be fitting the 9" brake shoes, backing plate, etc., to work with the 12" diameter '36 drum. It might require a custom offset backing plate.

Note added : I measured the smaller bolt circle. It is 5 1/2" diameter....the same as a Bronco axle (or '32 - '48 Ford p***enger car).

 

the drum your showing is quit simular to the circle track adapter I was talking about the center bolted to the stock 9 inch bolt circle and fit the 9 inches backing plate spacing etc.it just bolted in place of the stock ford drum and had the wide 5 pattern for modified racing wheels bye the way you can get wide 5 wheels in many sizes for about 50$ apiece new from circle track suppliers in various finishes Aluminum,chrome or painted

 

The only problem with the circle track stuff is it looks like circle track stuff. I prefer the look to be as old-time-traditional as possible.

 

With a little help from the HAMB, I found this truck...
http://customcl***ictrucks.com/featuredvehicles/0604cct_1944_chevy_highboy_pickup/


Here's the ch***is...


What I know...
-39 Ford Spindles
-60 buick drums
-48 Lincoln rear brakes
-frankland backing plates from the 70's up front
-39 Ford hubs (the part we have to figure out)
-obviously a late model rear, looks like a Winters or Frankland QC
-obviously some racing wide five wheels of some kind as well

NOW... anyone care to take a stab at how the hell he worked out the 39 hubs with the buick drums and lincoln b-plate ***emblies??

The guy's name is Dennis Frings... anyone know him? Is he on here? I did a Google search and came up with pretty much nothing.

If I can figure out what he did, that's what I would like to do...

 

Here's what I've seen done bye local racers and I will tell you now this was more than 30 years ago since I've watched somebody do it .the 39 drum is machined off just outside the bolt circle the face of the buick drum is machined away to just slightly smaller than the ford bolt circle.3/4 ton ford truck lugs are pressed into both the buick drum and the ford drum joining the 2 like in the pictures you posted.I do not clearly remember how it was done but one racer used to join the outer part of a buick backing plate to the center part of a ford backing plate and used buick wagon brake shoes etc. in his cars.I'm going to ask a friend who used to race back then and see if he can tell me more about this if he does I'll share it here

 

Is that your car Nimrod? Just wondered what size those front tires are.

 

They're 5.00-16 Firestones.

 

Yes! Please talk to your friend and see what you can find out. I would like to hear.

I contacted the Editor of the article for that truck to see if I could get some contact info. As Caffeine mentioned, I could just call him, but I would like to start with an email before I got bugging people. If I get desperate, I know how to find him. I'm going to a meeting next week that has a ton of old timers. Maybe I can get some feedback from them. Also, I think one of the may have a set of hubs from a 37 p***enger car.

 

It appears to have the early Ford tapered/keyed rear axles and that would suggest a Halibrand V8 quickie. But the rear shot shows a finned cover which would suggest a Champ rearend.

I'd like to see a tech article on this one.

 

Saw this thread back to the top again so I checked to see what was going on. Not to sound like a commercial but the rear end in the black pickup pictured appears to be the V8 size unit that I sell. It uses early Ford axles, tubes and hubs. It is a simple series of bolt on parts. In this case instead of using a 5 x5 1/2" hub, he used a wide 5 hub from a 37-9 ford. As I posted before and another poster wrote this is an easy conversion to Buick drums requiring just simple machine work. However in your scenario you want to use pull out axles, then it gets more complicated. If you want additional info call or PM. ****

 

That Chevy truck appeared in the April '06 Custom Cl***ic Trucks magazine.It says the
rear end is a Halibrand v-8 quickchange,
rear brakes are 48 Lincoln with 60 Buick drums on 39 Ford hubs,
front 39 Ford Hubs with speedway 6" drop steering arms, 60 Buick drums, and circa 1970 Frankland backing plates from Frankland Racing Equipment in Ruskin, Florida.
Wheels are aluminum circle track racing wheels by Goudy Racing Wheels in Los Angeles.
Built by Dennis Frings' of Concord, North Carolina.

 

Yep! I just inquired for info from Halibrand on that rear end. It uses big bearing ford axles and is set up for late model brakes.

Do the Lincoln backing plates match the tube flanges set up for late model brakes or did they have to do some modifying of the backing plate (and/or the tube flange)? Maybe someone can measure their tube flanges on the 9" Ford rear they have sitting around and tell us what the hole pattern is. Same with the Lincoln backing plate... anyone have one they can provide the hole patter off?

 

Flange and b-plate measurements anyone??

 

I want to bump this one up again since I made a decision about what to do with the front and have a couple ideas for the rear.

For the front I think I have lined up some 39 Ford wide five drums for my wheels. I will use the round style spindle (37-41) since it's the correct one for that year, and I would like to use the Wilson finned backing plates, if they'll work:

Will the shoes be too deep for the 39 drum? Is there any other modifications that will need to be done to use this front brake ***embly with the 39 drum?

As for the rear, I'm weighing two options:
a) stock 9" type brakes with a custom wheel adapter of some kind (since it will be seen I want it to look appropriate)
OR....
b) running the rear 39 wide 5 drums, knock out the center and adapt it to the 9" axle flanges and run wilson backing plates on the rear also.

So, I need your guys' input...
- Are the front brakes going to need narrower shoes and/or any other modifications?
- Any thoughts about the rear brake arrangements I mentioned?