Friend has a 40 Ford that has been sitting For a while. It was drivable when it was parked. He wants to get it going again but one of the rear wheels has locked up. He has aske me to help. I have acces to the correct puller and I have pulled pulled rear drums before. However, the only time I pulled one that was locked up I damaged the lip of the drum. The drum is really locked up. We pulled the car on pavement and all it did was leave a black streak. Does anyone here have any experience with this sort of thing. I'd like to pull the drum without damage. Appriciate any and all advice.
The "correct" puller is an old KR Wilson tool made just for Ford hubs....it uses a split collar to fit around the hub, and has an internal rib to catch the groove that is in all early Ford hubs ('32-48). You fit the split collars on the hub, then place a special ring around them, then tighten the big 'ol bolt in the middle. These things pull the hub from the center, rather than the outer lip....or from the studs. There's a fellow who makes and sells his own version of the old KR Wilson tool....he gets about $60 for it, and I've heard it works well enough. YOu have to be sure the brake shoes are retracted enough to let the drum come out past them. If the drum is worn enough and the shoes are adjusted out enough, they will catch the edge of the worn area and prevent the drum from coming off. If that seems to be the case, loosen the brake cylinder bolts and bump the cylinder front and back until the pistons are knocked back into the cylinder a bit. Check around your area for any old Ford restorers....chances are someone has the old KRW tool.
You could also undo the adjuster bolts at the bottoms of the shoes (take the nuts off) and tap them in to the drum. With them undone and the cylinders loose, (bolts and hose undone) the shoes will come off with the drums.
Appriciate the advice. I'll try the wheel cylinder trick. If that does not loosen up the drum I'll borrow my other friend's hub puller and see if I can get it off.
Not to be an *** (although I'm good at it) but if your friends hub puller isn't the one described you'll not get the hub off. the troque on the nut is something like 180 lbs and at the torque it won't let loose with an ordinary hub puller. That's why the specific puller was designed for the job. Using anything else is only going to damage something. I shouldn't be posting anything about this I've only had 40+ years doing this stuff so maybe you should consult someone with REAL experience for advice. BTW, be sure to come back and tell me you got it off W/o the correct puller. That will mean the job is done and that's a good thing. Frank
I am faced with a similar job, my 36 needs the rear hubs pulled, I was planning on using a puller that bolts to the bolt hole patern that looks like it's 5.5 on 5 on the rear hubs, this won't work???
On the postwar brakes, you can't release the lower anchors from the outside--try undoing the backing plate bolts instead. Sounds like shoes are fused to drum, but back off cams anyhow... Lug bolt type pullers can actually distort the drum, sometimes even cracking it, if the hub is really tight. They can work, as many hubs are running too loose--since your problem is at shoes, it MIGHT have loose hubs as many Fords do. Just don't get extreme with this type of puller--if hub doesn't pop by the time the tension is getting scary, hunt for a better puller rather than tightening to extremes. Proper torque is so high this is probably the only fastener on the car a muscular idiot won't overtighten--that's why many are too loose!
You sure about '40's? Maybe my Canadian 1940 axle was using up all the PREWAR parts sent from the USA?!?! Undoing backing plate bolts ... PRAY the shoulders of the backing plate bolts aren't ROUNDED inside! Then we left out the "blue flame" wrench! (some heat, with all of the above)
And then ... (from the Ford Barn) ... pulling rear brake drums. Here's a trick I learned when I don't have a puller. It almost always works. Let's ***ume it's the RIGHT rear brake drum we want to remove. Get the car on level ground, preferably on asphalt or concrete. Remove the right rear axle nut. Now turn it around and run it back on the axle until it is exactly flush with the end of the axle. Now get out your trusty bumper jack.... that's right, a bumper jack! Jack up the LEFT rear until the tire is off the ground a few inches. Grab a good sized hand sledge hammer and go back to the RIGHT side. Put your **** against the right rear fender with your legs positioned apart (so you can swing the hammer between them). Now lean against the fender HARD.... almost to the point of pushing the car off the bumper jack. Using the sledge hammer at the same time hit the axle nut hard. The leaning against the car puts equal pulling pressure all around the drum/axle contact areas. Sometimes it takes 15-20 blows before the drum pops loose. If this fails, and you can't borrow or rent a heavy duty puller, proceed to the next level of drum torture. Use a torch to heat the drum and repeat the above steps.
Mine were on there...tough! I used a puller and put at much pressure as I felt safe with. Then, I sprayed it with penetrant and gave it a few good walps with a hammer....not on the threads but the part fo the hub the puller was attatched to. However, I didn't have the brake problem....well it caught some but not much...
This is the puller mentioned above, http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=43996&item=4553103460&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW I ordered one for 32Limey, and it arrived in a couple of days, worked perfectly too. Dave
Here (hopefully) is a pic of the old KR Wilson hub puller from an old catalog of theirs. Damn good tool to have around if you're working on early Fords.
Hang on a bit. All good advice above, but you need to treat it as two separate operations. First you need to get the hub off the taper. Use the correct tool. Or try the sledgehammer between the legs bit above. Ok lets say you are able to break the taper, at that point you can then tell if it's stuck on the shoes. Back off the adjusters, go around the drum with a hammer, applying MODERATE blows around the outside (not on the edge). Then just keep applying as many of the methods described above until you can pull it all the way off. Hope this helps, Mart.
"Here's a trick I learned when I don't have a puller" On this one, GET A KNOCKER! That's a traditional tool, really just a big acorn nut that goes on the end of the axle to protect threads. New ones are cheap and available from the Model A places, old ones are all over the fleam arkets and sometimes are found in really hefty versions. Look for one that has 5/8" on it or just grab the ones that fit on a finger tip pretty well... On a Ford, these also fit the other two really bad news removal problems--steering shaft and front spring perch bolts! They are really a necessity, because while these parts are very tough, the threads deform easily. You want the thing to bear against the end of the shaft, not the threads--so put in a small ball bearing, or in the case of the steering a small bolt down the center hole. Once you start pounding without a knocker, even with the nut threaded on, bad stuff happens--and you probably don't have the nifty tool for rethreading an axle from the good threads out! The traditional version is still available from Snap-On, but the price is likely to cause cardiac problems...
Ah, Bruce, you're a good man.....once again! I never thought about using an axle knocker on my perch pin bolts...doh! I special ordered a 5/8-18NF die for perch bolts and axle threads- paid for it too. This past weekend, while at the swap meet, I was digging through a box of taps and found, not one, but two. They were heavy duty American made dies. Here's is a pic of an axle knocker that I bought off "the ole guy in the holler." However, after my excitment of him even selling it to me, it was the wrong size. Darn it! I should have know that the 3-4 written on it wouldn't even come close to 5/8". This is a heavy one, it has that "look" to it.....I'm on the hunt for a good ole American made 5/8 like this one..... EDIT: one more thing, grandpa makes them by welding two nuts together and a heavy pc on the end. hoever, they usually get battered pretty quickly(soft steel), i don't think he'd pay the extra for grade 8.....
We got the rear drums off this morning. The 40 supposidly had a near fresh brake job when parked. The left rear drum was the one that had locked up. We started by removing the axle bolt. It was just a tad shy of being finger tight. Not a good sign. Then we hit the drum with a BFH. On the edge all the way around. Powdered rust started drifting out and the drum started to move outward on the axle. It came off without using the puller. The indide of the drum was well rusted but the shoes looked like new. Same story on the right rear. Except that the friction material simply flaked off the shoes. Never seen anything like it before. We have a complete set of front and back shoes on order. It looks like the brake fluid has leaked out. The pedal is resting on the floor. I'm woundering if the right rear wheel cylinder leaked and the brake fluid rotted the friction material. Anyone have an opinion?
Any suggestions on reinstalling 40 ford rear drums after motor/transmission has been removed? Won't the axles just turn with out motor/******? 180ft pds is a lot o force to load without something to hold it from turning? Am I missing something? Thanks!
Yes, you do them up with the weight of the car on the wheels. Or get a length of angle iron and drill two holes and bolt it to two of the wheel studs. Mart.
The Jalopy Journal
