Been collecting some parts for a project g***er that me and a friend are planning on putting together, thing is it has to be dirt cheap, well i got a late ford front axle for 25 quid of a local rodder (jason) and a pair of early (32-36) ford spindles for 40 quid off another rodder (carl), only down side to them is that someone sometime cut the steering arms off! but nothin a set of fabricated bolt on pair cant sort out. So now it came to the brake situation, well i bought a pair of 4.5 x 15 slots with new crossply tyres for 150 quid off the internet, but only downisde to them was they were 4 stud vw pattern, hence there were cheap. Well i knew that vw stuff was cheap and the hub and disc came as one unit so thought i would have a go at adapting them to early ford spindles. So i got hold of a new set of vw bearings for 12 quid and a mate gave me a pair of hubs/discs for free, result! i then borrowed a vw spindle to take measurements from. So first i bolted the early ford spindle to the tool that locates in the chuck of the lathe, trued everything up and then started turning! gettin the spindle and tool to run true was by far the most time consuming and longest part. So i machined the spindle to take the rear bearing first, then taking measurements i then machined the spindle for the front bearing which is located alot further back on the spindle than the original ford bearing, then after measuring the length of the vw spindle i cut the ford spindle to the correct length. The vw uses a m16 spindle nut and i hate metric so i choose to use a 5/8 UNF castle nut so turned the end of the spindle to the correct size and ran a die along it to cut the thread, then i cut a slot for the washer that sits behind the nut to slide down, just used a grinder for this. i hten fitted all the bearings and hubs to the spindles and it works out great. So for 77 quids worth of parts and a bit of time on the lathe we have front brakes for the g***er. pictures to follow <!-- / message --><!-- attachments -->
spindle cut to length and thread cut to take spindle nut thread cut and spot made for washer all the bearings and nuts trial fitted hub fitted and all works perfect
Are spindles heat treated? I'm just wondering if you might have seriously weekend the spindle by cutting through/removing that material. Otherwise...love it.
Great job if the spindles were "heated" he would not be able to machine them. I put 71 Mustang brakes on my 39 almost 40 years ago using the same idea. They are still on there.
How many "quid"is your life worth? Dont skimp when installing brakes,their more important than the engine.
also to add my dad has a full engineering back round so he wouldnt let me do anything he wouldnt fell safe with, plus he did the same to fit a pair of anglia spindle 12 spoke magnesium wheels to early ford spindles about 25 years ago and they are still on the car having covered thousands of miles
To ME it looks just a little iffy...and heres why. For one, I'd like to see a more gradual taper where the outer bearing area is rolled into the original center area of the spindle. I think ending the cut like you did increases the chance of fracture sometime in the future. Also, the VW hub/disc seemingly has the wheel mounting surface well out towards the outer bearing. I'm guessing that originally the VW would have used an inset style wheel to put more of the load on the inner bearing. Using a zero offset style wheel would but extra stress on the small outer bearing...and as a result also increase the load on that sharp cut area of the spindle I already mentioned. You've cut a lot off the spindle so its hard to tell...but will your wheel/tire combo result in proper alignment of the kingpin angle and tire thread to the road? All this is just in response to what I THINK I'm seeing...remember...I'm just looking at pictures. Seeing and handling the parts might make me feel totally different! I think its great your doing this much work yourself though. This is what Hotrodding is all about!!!!
it all works out great, the disc almost sits right over the hub, and the kingpin inclination is spot on, wouldnt have done it if nothing would have worked out, and i left as much material on the spindle as i could to help keep enough strength in the spindle. it all works out perfect
Looks good. The king pin inclination is in the center of the tire? How about the caliper bracket? BTW, what kind of VW? Would like to see a straight on pic from the front when you have them on with the tire and wheel.
Cool project. I also like using a heavy duty spindle in most cases "just in case" but look at the abuse a pair of stock Willys or Anglia spindles can take. It worked for the VW and those can take a serious off road beating a street car normally won't see so as long as everthing is dead on I don't see an issue. What I have often wondered is why so many people think removing material directly "increases" strength. You can move a fracture point this way and it's possible to result in something that bends over its length instead of a direct or complete fracture with the same amount of load sure. Yet at the point where load is great enough to do either here are you really any less screwed? I didn't see anything about plans for wheelies or Duke boy creek jumps either. At one point this was fairly common conversion that I've never seen fail. Also if I remember correctly Street Scene printed a tech article on this back in the 70's.
He's happy....I'm happy. Still...I'd put a nice rounded transition from his machined area to the unmachined area. Different strokes...
It may seem irrelevant but almost every car hauling or travel trailer axle that I have seen has the spindles stepped in a similar fashion and I have never heard of a spindle breaking on one of them from stress alone. There looks to be plenty of metal left on the spindle to safely hold up the car it is intended for which probably isn't much heavier on the front end than a stock VW that the brakes came off.
Hey, that didnt come out of a bubble-pack. I'm scared!! Just looking at the photos, it looks like theres a decent radius at the end of each step, I dont see anything that makes me the least bit nervous. And I trained as a machinist, FWIW. Consider what most threads that have the word "g***er" in the ***le are like, I'd rate this two thumbs up...
I'll be happy here too, after a few beers. I agree honestly. I'm just saying what might be a general improvement in design won't make it any stronger or much (if any) safer and that even if it bent vs cracking as a result it would still be a failure you wouldn't be able to drive home on if such an event occured to cause that sort of damage. I'm sort of torn actually, I know this works fine first hand yet I also like overkill so I often use a big Chevy pin over even a stock early Ford on my own cars. Yep different strokes.... englishhemi32, I also think this might be worth offering as a service.
the g***er in question is a fibregl*** 41 willys (steel ones are even harder to find in england!) will be very light as its for racing, maybe the street a bit but mainly racing, only running a sbc chevy so no mayor weight. will make caliper brackets once i source some (cheap!) calipers but not really worried bout that at the moment, will sort a picture out of the wheel and tire on the hub, the inclination of the kingpin hits between the middle and the bottom of the tire.
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