Well ladies and gents, here's my first attempt at a tech thread. After seeing a guy build a bell housing from scratch, I was inspired to hack up my 36 backing plates and add juice. Didn't want to toss all my good components to do the customary 37 spindle, 39 b/p, 39 hub route, so follow along and I'll let the pic's do the talking.
Cut the helmets off the kingpins and will shorten the old actuating rod to act as an adjuster to the bottom half of the shoes. I'll keep you posted. What do you think?
Congratulations...........improvisation is not only useful, but fun and provides great satisfaction when finished. Modifying and reusing what you have is both practical and cost effective, especially when vintage subtitutes are getting harder to find. Good post! Ray
I want to do that to the backing plates of my '35 Dodge axle, to get self actuating brakes. Thanks for taking the plunge, keep us posted!
you going to retain the stock shoes and such?? pretty interesting way to go if you've already got the good components.
Thanks for all the input so far. Friend of mine machined out these neat little caps with a tappet adjuster in them to fit on top of the kingpins to provide adjustment to the bottom of the shoes. Using all stock components so far, with the exception of the new wheel cyls. I think they are out of a Chevy, they have a smaller body than the old Fords.
Did something similar to my Model A backingplates. Turned them 180 degrees around, and mounted the cylinder instead of the "wedge". Adjusterscew is retained. Used original shoes, just grinded them a bit and welded a small tap on to match the cylinder piston
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