40 brake question
 

Hi all.

My 36 has been swapped over to later juice brakes. There are castle nuts on the backing plates. Are they supposed to be individually secured with cutter keys or safety wire?

Re: 40 brake question
 

Here's some backing plate bolts off my 40. Looks like they have a hole for cotter pin.
I would also use Locktite. Washers are those old Ford thick lock washers.

Re: 40 brake question
 

Assuming the castle nuts were correct why would Ford use a castle nut and not a cotter key? Don't know, just wondering.

Charlie Stephens

Re: 40 brake question
 

Those bolts on my cars have holes in them for cotter keys. Look closely and see if the remnants of a cotter key is in the hole and looks like threads.

Re: 40 brake question
 

Slotted nuts and cotter pins which later gave way to lock nuts; but never any lock washers unless someone else was there first; and I have removed untold numbers of early Ford car and truck brake assemblies.

Re: 40 brake question
 

Rich, You are correct. Ford did NOT install lock washers in this area.

Re: 40 brake question
 

Actually they did not use castile nuts. Rather, Ford used slotted hex nuts. A cotter pin was in fact used in all four (per plate) application.

Re: 40 brake question
 

Thanks "KUBE". You just made me smarter.

Re: 40 brake question
 

thanks all. I'm going through the whole chassis of a car that was in final assembly with the PO passed way to nut and bolt things and make sure everything is as it should be before I hit the road.

Re: 40 brake question
 

When I took the backing plates off my '46 Coupe, the nuts looked like castellated nuts, but the slots were too small to insert a cotter pin in. I found on page 679 in the Green Book that Ford called them free running locknuts. When I took a sample to the local fastener supplier, he called them Marsden locknuts. When I told him that they didn't act like a locknut, he explained that the clamping side of the nut is undercut near the hole leaving a bit of a raised edge around the perimeter of the nut, and the slots on the outer face of the nut allows the top half of the nut to squeeze inward when the nut is torqued down, causing the upper half of the nut to clamp onto the bolt.

Re: 40 brake question
 

Hang around me more, that'll change. And, not for the better :)

Re: 40 brake question
 

He was correct - they are Marsden nuts. They are designed to lock. I'm not 100% certain when Ford started using them a lot... I think in '42??? By '46 they were all over the Ford cars.

On a '40 Ford they are in a grand total of two places.

Re: 40 brake question
 

My '42 came with cotter pins.