I have a 1935 Chevy Standard Sedan and I think I want to swap out the running gear with everything from a 1955 chevy. My goal is to use as old as parts as possible and it seems like '55 makes the most sense to me. I think I have everything figured out, but just double checking with people more knowledgeable than me... My question is, can I use the front spindles from a 55 on the axle of the 35? Do I need some kind of adaptor to make it work?
I don't think that will work. I believe the Standard 35 Chev has an I beam, king pin set up. The 55 has independent, with upper/lower control arms. The spindles won't interchange. Further, I doubt the brake backing plates from the 55 will adapt to the 35 spindle, but there may be a disk brake kit for the early spindle.
You should be able to use 49/54 Chevy car drums and backing plates. You may or may not have to swap the inner wheel bearing race that goes on the spindle. I've run into two different Chevy spindle diameters on the inner bearing surface for 54 and earlier. The axle that was under my 48 when I bought it in 1973 had the smaller diameter inner bearing surface on the spindles and the axle that one of my buddies gave me for my roadster project has the same small inner diameter. However The Filling Station says they are all the same. 55 is a completely different hub and backing plate.
my 33 axle uses a 41 chevy truck spindle [I believe 37-55 are the same?] and 51 chevy car backing plates [51+ are full energizing brakes] to do this the original 33 king pin was used and a bushing that fit the 41 spindle had to be found with a smaller hole for the king pin.
If you want to upgrade the front to disc brakes I just went through it with my 36 Chevy coupe. It's not easy since nobody makes a plug & play kit. 55 Chevy car won't work with your straight axle front end. But 48-59 half ton pickup spindles can be made to fit. It requires reaming out the kingpin holes in your 35 axle and using shims to take up the different spacing as well. The half ton pickup spindles use a longer kingpin. The flat on the kingpin for the pinch bolt will need to be made deeper as well. Then you can use one of the readily available disc brake conversion kits made for the later pickups.
There are different ways to do it, as you can see from the various replies above. I'd look into using 51-59 truck backing plates, on the original 35 spindles, and use the 35 inner bearings along with the 51-54 car hub/drum. This will give you 5 lugs as well as the modern self-energizing brakes, and the adapting isn't very difficult, you'll have to make the backing plates fit the early spindles, but that's a relatively easy modification (check bolt sizes, lengths, and spacer lengths).
Regardless of how you do it you'll open up a whole new world of possibilities as far as wheel choice. The 33-36 Chevrolet Standards use an odd 4 1/4" bolt circle wheel that's near impossible to find.
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