Technical Model A/Lincoln brakes

I get a lot of questions about the Lincoln brakes on my A so I will post pictures Please dont reply until I get this figured out. This will be slow since this forum locks me out every 2 or 3 minutes.
First you need a spacer in the backing plate to fill the gap and you need to weld up holes in the plate and drill new holes to mount it to the spindle.

 

made a spacer, made sure it fits

 

turn a 4" pipe on the lathe so it fit

 

thats the front, easy, weld in the spacer and make new holes, ***emble all the brake parts from a 71-76 Chevy These parts MUST be from the big wagons. There was a bunch of big wagons, Caprice is one.
and of course we are talking rear brakes because the fronts were discs. Put the new brakes on your dropped axle.

 

put the whole mess under your traditional hotrod

 

Now the rear. I got a bad noise in the rear axle and had to pull it anyway, so just the right time to rebuild the axle, install Bendix brakes and install a 1984-87 fully synchronized 3 speed with overdrive Heres the culprit, a ring bolt. All the other bolts werent even finger tight.

 

The rear axle presents more challenge. First the brake line is pointed at the spring hanger. I didnt want to rotate the backing plate and tried to avoid it by making a 5/8 spacer to move the backing plate out. In the end I did rotate the plate. I rotated the plates to the rear instead of to the front. I hope this puts the bleeder valve closer to 12 o'clock when I jack the rear up to bleed the rear brakes On the front axle I bought Bob Wilsons backing plates. I got only the plates because his setup is not self-adjusting and I got all the brake shoes, spring kit, and wheel cylinders for less money at the parts store. On the rear I used the 71-76 chevy backing plates. As you can see, they dont fit. measure carefully, then cut out what is not needed. I started with the torch, then used a grinder.

 

I made a new center with Ford bolt pattern using my lathe and tacked it in. At all times, keep measuring and checking the fit

 

Checking the fit of the rotated plate and brake line

 

This picture is the rear plate welded and painted. You can see the drum retainer (lower right) useful if the axle shaft breaks, Its bolted on backwards until everything is ***embled on the car. Parking brake cable to the left

 

I made a spacer to move the brakes away from the spring hanger. I bought Advance Auto longer lug bolts but they looked Chinese so I got some excellent quality bolts from Speedway

 

How are we supposed to know when your done so we can ask questions?

 

I labelled parts, including the part number for future use.

 

Completed rear brake ***embly

 

Out of focus but you can see the 71-76 self-adjuster arm. I couldnt find this piece for the 12" brakes new at the parts store. I had one set of rear backing plates from the junkyard but needed another pair of self adjusting arms for the front. Easy solution: El Camino adjusting arms. They may be 10" and are too small but look like the 12" arms. I cut the El Camino parts and welded in enough metal that they match the 12" arms

 

After the rear brakes were ***embled, I found that the parking brake arm interfered with the brake drum and removed the part sticking out. This pic shows the straightedge used to determine how much to get rid of. I used 4 new 1940 drums because 41 and newer didnt fit on the front

 

Thats it. I hope it helps you. If you need another picture or better explanation, Ask.

 

Are they Lincoln brakes or GM brakes ?

 

Great write up with pic's!
I just ordered Wilson Welding's cast Aluminum finned backing plates and brakes, first question I asked was are the brakes self energizing, Bob said yes. What am I missing here?

 

Lincoln brakes are Bendix. So are the 71-76 chevy. Its good to know that the GM parts are readily available.



I have to give Andy on the hamb credit for telling me how to do this

 

Thank you. I did this in 2007 and at that time Bobs kit was not self-adjusting. The brakes have been working well for 8 years and I have driven this car to 4 states.

Edit: In post7 I used the wrong word and have edited it to read Bobs brakes are not self-adjusting. In addition to the arm, you need the correct star wheel and spring to have brakes that adjust evenly and dont ever need to be adjusted by hand

 

How wide are the Chevy shoes? Seems they would be too wide for 1940 Ford drums? Is the wheel cylinder, springs, star adjuster and all other mounting hardware from the Chevy?
Also, there is another Lincoln backing plate (maybe MT verses Wilson) that has an elongated hole for the wheel cyl. Would you know what brake parts work with the other plate? Would these same Chevy brakes work? I'm wanting to use Buick finned drums.
Thanks for the post!

 

Manyolcars, I had the lock out issue with the forum and Ryan said to check the box "remember me" when signing in and it would fix the issue. It did. FWIW.