What front drums w/ Aluminum Rear Wide 5's?

I am looking at running a set of the aluminum wide 5 drums on the rear of my '29 Tudor. I am not sure what front hubs / drums to run with them. I already have '39 Ford wide 5 wheels that I want to run without caps. Would it look terrible with regular Ford wide 5 drums on the front? I picture matching hubs being more pleasing to the eye, but then again, I have seen many disc / drum combos that look fine.

I have built adapters to put Wilwood wide 5 hubs / discs on '49 Chevy spindles before, so I am open to adapting another set of the aluminum hubs / drums. The only downside to this plan is that finding one set of aluminum hubs / drums for the rear to fit my Winters QC felt like a gift, so I'm not very confident in finding a second set for the front.

Any pictures or comments on experience that anyone could share about this subject would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Joey

 

You could machine buick drums to fit the '39 ford hubs, that's what i'm gunna be doing saturday after i get my milling machine dropped off at my house, Offset may be a little problem, you may need to modify the backing plates inward to fit shoes propperly

As for cutting the buick drums up they did it on racers back in the day and apparently they worked, Basicly the center was cut out and they had a locating step turned in them to the same dimentions as the '39 ford drums

Anouther option is cut off a floater hub and bolt it over your old spindle and run floaters in the front too, a little heavy looking but ive seen it done in the old days too

 

Here are two examples with stock 37-39 front drums, the black car has 16" wheels, the orange one has 15".

 

****gy, I like the sound of the Buick drums on the '39 hubs. When you are talking about machining them to fit, are you talking about making them functional or just a cover? I was under the impression that the '39 hub / drum was one piece.?. Do you machine the drum off of the '39? Would you mind sharing some pictures of your process when you work on yours?

Marty, your pictures help a lot. I don't think it looks bad at all with the stock style '39 front with the floater rear.

Thanks for the replies

 

Wide 5s come both ways some have integral drums and some have the separate drums attached by the lug studs. You do want '37-'39 for the fronts as '36 hubs are different.

 

Post 40 on the end of page 2 has a couple of pictures of wide 5 with Buick drums. Hubs look like they may be '36 with the longer snout and inner spirals.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...&highlight=wide+five+help+adapting+front+rear

 

The best way is to locate the 2pc wide5 hub/drum. Seperate the hubs and cut out the center of the buick drum and add the bolt pattern and there you have it! I have the complete setup here on the floor if you need pics. The hard part is finding the 2pc drums.
That floater hub on the black trackster looks wicked.

 

I think this is what you need , you use 1937-39 two piece hubs separate the drum from the hub and the Buicks are faced and indexed to fit the hub. This requires a degree of machine work to center the drum on the hub so if you are not experienced or do not have the equipment you will have to rely on the local machine shop to do the work. The best part about this is the hub price. measure the stock brake drum diameter if the measurement is over 12 and 3/32 the drum is about junk so you can negotiate a good price on the piece. If the drum is less than 12 3/32 dont break it up they are getting hard to find and you would ruin a good part. Here is an idea of what you need. There is also an issue with the backing plate edge rubbing on the drum but this can be easily machined down for clearance.

 

Thats what i was talking about!!