Guys I need your help identifying the year of my front brakes. After going thru the issues most of you have had regarding soft brake pedal, leaking fittings, replacing the master cylinder, replacing the hoses & fighting with too thin & hard copper washers, I discovered after 2 weeks of down time the driver side wheel cylinder is cracked allowing fluid to leak... I need your help ID'ing the year of my Ford (Lockheed?) front brakes. The bottom shoes are anchored by pins with a cotter pin holding them in place. Only the top end adjust with the 11/16" hex bolt & washer. cam set up. What year, part number brake cylinder do I need to purchase. What vendor would you recommend?
Looks like 42-48 Ford brakes to me. Even NAPA has the wheel cylinders and some other parts for those. http://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/R...k=Keyword&Nty=1&N=599001+101948+50026+2026044 Don
Don Thank you for nailing this one down for me. My budget is tight and I wanted to make sure I ordered the correct one. If you don't mind, I need another bit of advice. I made an attempt to remove the brake shoe springs from my jalopy. I tried channel locks. I'm not strong enough to grasp and remove the springs. The adjusters are all the way in to loosen the spring tension. Is there a trick or a special tool on how to safely remove them? Thanks again for helping a rookie out of a jam.
For removing the spring. Take the pinned side of the shoe off, bring the ends together. It will relax the spring. I usually put the shoes on at the same time wih spring installed, wheel cyl side first, stretch shoes over the axle. Hope this makes sense.
You're welcome. Oldolds is right, just remove the cotter pins and that oval plate at the bottom, slide the bottoms of the shoes off of the pins, and then move the bottom of the shoes apart until they clear those keepers in the middle of the shoe. You can then lift the shoes as one unit out of the backing plate and then remove the spring once you have them free of the brake ***embly and those forked pins on each side of the wheel cylinder. Putting them back on is just the reverse of that procedure. BTW, you probably already know this, but at some point someone redrilled the hubs for a later bolt pattern to use different wheels on it. No problem with that, just an observation. Don
Thanks again for all the advice. The hubs already were drilled for a 4 3/4" Chevy bolt pattern. When it comes time to order replacement drums, I should ask for '48 Ford?
Yep, but you will have to drill holes in them like the ones in it now. BTW, there is another way to get that spring off. The spring has ends that have hooked ends on them and they fit into holes in the shoes. The hooks face opposite directions. If you slip some vice grips in and just grab the curved part of the hook that is facing out you can use the vice grips as a long handle to pull the hook out of it's hole. It gives you some leverage, and you can reinstall the spring the same way. Just an alternative way to remove it. Don
What makes you think the cylinder is cracked, did you rebuild the cylinders,if not you most likely have a leak past the rubber cups, once you get it off peal back the rubber boot on the end and see if its full of fluid, if you havn't rebuilt the cylinders it might be time so that they all work the same.
I can see the seepage from the casting near where the hose screws in. Appears the wheel cylinder was not cast correctly. The right side cylinder has a smoother ,more finished appearance.
Picking up the wheel cylinder Saturday. A little work, then on to bleeding the brakes hopefully for the last time in a long while. Hope to be bang'n the gears by late afternoon. Thanks again.
If you haven't done it already, you might want to call NAPA to see if they have it in stock. They don't sell these every day so they might have to bring them in. Don
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