Also, anyone know of any tires made like this for a 15" wheel? Thinkin of goin early 60s look surf rod style and doing the chrome wheels and pinner or 1" whitewall tires. Cheaper the better, preferably radials but also open to bias. Thanks in advance!
Hello, Nice looking panel truck. But, as long as you are starting, that stock motor will not be so powerful in driving on the I-5. Coming and going to San Diego from the greater Los Angeles area or anywhere up the So Cal coast and back. From past experiences in a 80 hp flathead powered 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery, which is definitely a little smaller, we had power problems going up the Torrey Pines Grade in 3rd gear, then 2nd, then first to try and get over the top heading South for some surf spots in the San Diego and Baja, Mexico. areas We had two surfboards, cooler, sleeping bags, cooktop, food bags and clothes. Our long road trip from Long Beach to Windansea was 100 miles one way. We were planning on a weeks stay in the area, or farther into Baja, Mexico. But, the Torrey Pines grade heading South always gave us problems in accelerating up hill in any gear. It was the lack of power in the stock flathead motor and our smaller sedan delivery. If we stopped at Torrey Pines at the cliff base beach area to surf first, afterwards, the only way was a right turn heading South on PCH, uphill from a dead start… “oh woe is me…” From a dead start heading uphill, it was 1ST/2nd gear ¾ the way up and back to first gear barely making it over the crest of PCH going farther South. We needed a larger v8 or more HP from a modified flathead motor. Both of which was out of our pocket books and no way to get it done. So, we suffered each time we went South. Ha! Jnaki Your panel truck needs a more powerful v8 motor, so, an SBC motor seems right and there are usually kits to make the installation easier. Now, the cruise away from San Diego North and return home won’t be a chore every time one approaches the Torrey Pines Beach Road grade, uphill. Most folks don't think twice about the steep hill climb from Del Mar to the top of the Torrey Pines hill. Just step on the gas pedal for more power. But, our stock 80 hp flathead motor, even with a running start, had problems going up that steep hill every time we were going farther south for our surf adventures. Something to make the SBC power more friendly... We have driven uphill many times in the years sailing out of the San Diego Harbor area. On our way to the harbor from the OC coastal area was an hour + drive, but at least the powerful motor had no problems flying uphill easily on our weekly trips. So, the hill grade was nothing in a larger, more powerful v8 motor. YRMV "More Power..."
Yep, plan is to definitely put a 283 or 327 or whatever I can find in there, either behind a 39 trans, or a jeep t5 with kato kings torque tube adapter that I picked up from a guy out in SD. I like the idea of a t5 better, but that might get complex with shortening the torque tube and driveshaft. I'm not opposed to changing the rearend but I was really thinking I'd like to drive it with the stock front and rear wishbones, as I've heard they drive real nice. I also heard of a street rodder article about a 1934 sedan they took and put a sbc, auto, and a 9" or 8" with parallel leafs in it.... thats not a bad idea either, just looking for the least invasive thing for this car. BTW anyone have that old street rodder article? They left the body on the frame from what I've heard. Thanks! Gordy
Milestar makes a cheap 1 inch whitewall radial in 15 inch sizes. I ran them on my old 53 Ford Sedan. They were pretty good tires for the price. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9V2M2M9/?tag=atomicindus08-20
Lowered the front a little more. Have 5 leafs in the front spring now. Might have to put one more back in when it settles. Definitely gonna put a flatter crossmember in whenever the flathead dies and gets replaced with a Chevy. I think I might size down my front tire from a 165R15 to a 155R15. Inconvenient to get a floor jack underneath... perfect haha anything I can do here to give me more clearance? I obviously need to cut down the spring bolt, but anything I can do with the U bolts? Thread them further and cut them down slightly? Or something? Put one more spring back in the rear. (The second longest one). It sits less cool but I think I needed that one. Affixed the stock rear dog bone shocks. Hope they have enough travel. Put the rear end end of the parking brakes into the backing plate with some modifying haha. Now I need to figure out how to attach this double barrel nut bracket. Thinkin I weld a tang off the torque tube (staying clear of the rear wishbone mounts) and then bolting it onto my new welded on tang. Well that's all I have for this weekend and last night. Feel pretty good about it tho! Short list is now Finish the parking brake front shocks plumbing Put in NHRP wishbone ball spacer Put in all the cotter pins Gordy
That's good to know. Truth be told I have no idea how these things work but just re***embled them. lol but it makes sense that if I bring the axle closer to the shock that I need a shorter dog bone to not bottom out so much. Gordy
Having a little trouble with the parking brake not really engaging far enough with the levers inside the shoes. Not sure if it's cause I'm running a speedway 9" parking brake kit and it doesnt quite sit in the shoe lever slot as well as I'd like... or if the clevis bottoming out on the transmission housing in the handbrake forward and not engaged position and I need to make some clearance for it to sit forward. Or if I need to do a better job of mounting the cable housing so there's less slack in the cable initially? Basically it's run straight from drums, along each rear wishbone to the torque tube where the TT and wishbones meet. Any help would be appreciated! Gordy
They are not the best picture's but all I could find. I have a '34 rear in my model a, and the 41-48 style brakes. I used E brake cables from the ford of those years along the radius rods, then used the ford adjuster and made a jack shaft to hook the adjuster and the rod from the lever to. I could find more parts info in my files if you are interested, and take some better picture's. It works well and looks less street roddy. Also on your front end question, I had to cut the front part of my U-bolts and use lock nuts instead of the castle nuts because they had more clearance. The panel is cool. Just my opinion, I have a 34 pick up and never cared for the chrome shell on the '32-34 trucks. They seem to flow into the body when they are painted.
I ended up ordering a stock style 41-48 e brake rear cable. Guess I just ruined a speedway universal one for no reason. But it's what I had on hand. Anyway that is coming out and gonna try this one I ordered from CW moss. That looks real good!! And yeah I scored a real nice black grill shell on marketplace. It's got pretty nice black paint. Might buff out. But I also might like paint matching the yellow on it. This woodie looks great in my opinion and it had yellow grill and bars. So maybe that's kind the inspiration for my surfrod. Still like the idea of 32 headlights so I'm gonna play around with that too. Gordy
As much as I like traditional stuff, you might want to think about front disc brakes for the downhill parts or your surf trips in the Lemon Behemoth. You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced brake fade with non-power drum brakes.
All plumbed. Went to put fluid in. Just leaking like crazy out of the rear of MC. I have a crush washer, the two to one br*** piece, another crush washer and then the bolt head that has a provision for the brake light switch. Am I missing something? It's not pipe thread so I didn't think I needed teflon tape. Maybe ordered the wrong crush washers? https://fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=316825 Should I try annealing the washers? How long should that br*** bolt be? I may or may not have damaged the br*** washer tightening it a bit. Gordy
There still seem to be quite a few options, depending on the size you want. Besides the normal Diamondback and Coker, here are some other options: MS775 TOURING SLE – Milestar Tires Vitour Galaxy R1 WSW Tires - 15 in. Wheel Diameter | Summit Racing Kontio Tyres 138549KON WhitePaw Cl***ic 165/80R15 Tire, 1.57 WW
Found these decent looking ones. They're about $400 for a set of 4. I do like the ones you sent from Summit racing. I like when there's black between the wheel and whitewall.
Figured out the leak. I took a small file to the copper crush washers and filed em flat. Annealed them with a torch, and then removed the master and made sure all my washers were centered before tightening down. That seemed to do the trick and it feels good and doesnt leak at all. Moving on, I have some questions. I pressed in new front studs and from what I can tell they were straight. I did add a chamfer to the drum inner hole that locates to the hub (It needed clearance). Theyre speedway drums with the speedway early ford style bendix backing plate. The drums rotate fine on the hub when a wheel is not attached, only very slight drag. When I bolt a wheel to it, it is completely locked up. I removed the shoes to make sure that the backing plate wasnt wonked, put the drum and wheel on and it span fine. Not sure if this is as simple as arching my shoes or turning my drums? Or if the hub is not locating properly on the drum? The boling brothers rear drums work great. Maybe I'm dealing with chinese junk, but I got the front backing plates for $40 instead of $500 from a guy on facebook marketplace. So does anyone know if it is one of the following? 1) hub not located to drum properly 2) studs not pressed in properly (They appeared pretty straight to me) 3) Arching shoes 4) Turning drums Any help would be awesome. I'm so close to driving this thing I'm getting antsy. Been thrashing almost every night for a couple hours each night to try to get the family cruiser going. Thanks in advance! Gordy
^^^seems similar to an issue @Ziggster had with Speedway backing plates. Maybe he’ll read it and let you know.
Haven’t read entire thread in detail, but yes, the backing plates I had purchased new from Speedway were warped quite a bit from likely the welding of the block to mount the piston. I also had the additional issue of the 2” wide shoes being too wide for my 37 wide five drums even though they advertise there loaded backing plates compatible with those years incl 36 - 39 where the wide five drums were made. My guess of the thd backing plates are from Speedway, they’re likely warped.
Those are the other brand I was looking for. Couldn't remember the name when I was searching. They're a knockoff of old style Radial T/A tread.
Yes backing plates and drums on the front are from speedway. Guess this $40 wasn't a good deal after all. lol They look even look slightly warped when looking from the front. But didn't know if that was the drum or backing plate. Were you able to remedy it? Or did you just end up s****ping them and going another route? Thanks! Gordy
Speedway offered to replace them, but it would be a huge h***le for me being in Canada, plus no guarantee that the new ones would be any better. Folks offered several suggestions on how to bend them back into shape, but I just didn’t have the equipment or inclination to go that route (was thinking of drilling anchor holes with anchor studs in my garage floor to mount them and then use a pry bar). The solution for me is likely to shave off a little more of the shoes that I already cut off to go from 2” wide to 1.75” wide. It’s a quick job on my cut-off saw that I modded into a makeshift bandsaw. I have some vids. I’ll load them onto my YT channel and will post the links later once I’m done loading them up.
Hets are the links: 1. warped plates on flat surface. https://youtube.com/shorts/YDmP_GSfD-o?feature=shared 2. Drum dragging on the shoe. https://youtube.com/shorts/Bnq9tNncozg?si=6xvbgeLCDTm1dw3S 3. backside of studs interfering. https://youtube.com/shorts/1ud7IJ-8RD4?si=Sj3NtbTraINKOpQY
Yeah with the inboard side of the backing plate on my flat workbench, I get a runout of almost 1/8". Which is similar to what you had at 0.100"ish. I'm only using a machinist ruler but it's definitely all wonked. Thanks for the YT videos! I will check them out!!
A 283ci SBC with an Adapter will be the cheap easy way. Not too much power, but will run easy at higher Rpm , so works with your 4.11:1 rear Axel. More Crusing Speed . Will run cool , too. Put a small diameter Distributor in (Firewall clearance)and exhaust manifolds that have the Outlet in Front (i think 1956?) I did that on my 1940 Sedan when i bought the car and Head no Money for a strong expensive Flathead Engine. I would power the Panel with Reverse Main Leaves and a Front dropped Axel and longer Shakles In the real. Better than take out spring Leaves.
Spent the whole weekend ****canning the speedway brakes. Thankfully I had a complete f100 axle laying in my wifes rose bushes in the front yard, so on saturday I pulled the brakes off, painted them and cleaned the hardware on my and then sunday ***embled them and put them on the car. I just so happened to have a full set of races and seals and bearings for the hubs. My coupe will be without front brakes now. But I do have an extra set of hubs, so if anyone has some f100 loaded backing plates, crusty or not, I am a buyer. Been fighting bleeding the brake system for hours. Did a few rookie moves. More so than past full brake jobs. (I guess this fourth one I got a little complacent). Anyway, I didnt have any speed bleeders (one way valve types) and was just running the stock ones and putting a little bottle with magnet above wheel cylinder. Anyway, I never could get any pedal. So I ordered some speed bleeders and will put them in tonight so hopefully I can be done with the brakes. Short list is now: Exhaust being more than 2" above the ground Putting in a back seat in a creative way that doesnt affect the back seat area. Question: Do stock flatheads with one exhaust port and the crossover deal, make a ton of noise if they are straight piped? Thanks! Gordy also enjoy this picture of this *****in 32 panel I saw on Facebook a few days ago.
@G_Don first off the panel is killer! I love a good hotrod panel. also if you haven’t bought tires yet I’d strongly suggest you call diamondback and talk to them about their aurburn cl***ic series. they look like a bias ply but are actually a radial and diamondback will cut you any sidewall you’d like to have. Also they’re 100% made in America which is great as well.
I love diamondbacks. I think for this car I'm gonna get some cheaper ones though. If they made a pinner white in the auburn bias lookalike I'd seriously consider it though! Here's the rear with some 6" wide 3.5" bS ansen TEs I had and some Diamondback 820R15 rear tires. They looked real good!!
The Jalopy Journal
