Ok guys, any idea what this is all about? I took these off the front of my 54 customline and noticed the same cuts in the drum on both sides. This isn't something done at the factory, so what the heck?
It's not uncommon to see those,Ford did that for two reasons as a vent and a way to blow out dust ac***ulation.My '54 has them too. Doing a brake job?
On my 54, there were adjustments for the shoe anchors. I thought that the slots were for a feeler gauge for adjusting those anchors. I just threw new shoes in an ran it. I used only the screw adjustment on the bottom.
Interesting, ok. I didn't think it was factory. Since it was not a clean cut. I'm rebuilding the whole frontend. Was going to go to feont disc conversion but decided to leave it drum because of cost.
I would imagine its was also used as a cooling aid so that the heat could escape faster through the vent.
Before I did the drop spindles/disk brake conversion on my two 54's and 55. The original drums had the same cuts in them. I remember when I rebuilt the brakes on my father-in-laws 56 CrownVictoria and the 56 I had, they had the same cuts too.
Ultimately, I'd like to change over to disc and p/s. But for now, I just want to get it back on the road. I can always do the change overs later
the front conversion isn't that bad on the wallet. you can piece your together. using firebird/camaro calipers and depending on your bolt pattern you want you can use aerostar front disc rotors. just Google for front disc conversions.. i picked my front disc conversion up for 430.00.
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