buick brake drums on my ford
 

Hello Barners, looking to put buick brake drums on my 40 ford juice brakes anybody know the tricks and best way to do the job, I have the drums and the ford hubs thanks Bob :cool:

Re: buick brake drums on my ford
 

There was a very good article in one of the Hot rod magazines awhile back. Not sure what month / year.
But if you post on the HAMB I'm sure someone can help you out.

Re: buick brake drums on my ford
 

You need the hubs that has the drums attached from inside, that gives you the right spacing.

Re: buick brake drums on my ford
 

I used Wilson Welding hubs on mine and that made everything easy from there. They are very good stuff and save time. They are designed to work with the Buick drums.

Re: buick brake drums on my ford
 

Many threads over on the HAMB site on doing this. I used '55 ford F2 pick-up backing plates (they are 12") and buick finned drums. Details are on the hamb for this as well.

Re: buick brake drums on my ford
 

On my Roadster I used F1 hubs. They mount on the inside of the Buick drums. They are a little "shallower" than the Ford hubs. Speedway sells the bearing kit for them. When installed they bring the drums closer to the backing plate. We took a whisker off the inner edge of the drum to clear the backing plate. (brake shoes are 1 3/4") This allows the wheels to tuck in over the drums. I'm using 16" 40-48 wheels. I'm not sure if this will work with 15" wheels. When using the "outside the drum" hubs the wheels are out almost 3/4" per side.... that may be a problem for cars with fenders especially with a dropped axle.

Re: buick brake drums on my ford
 

The HAMB has a post in the Tech Archives with lots of links to various methods to do this...

Re: buick brake drums on my ford
 

The Buick drums are cone shaped out to the mounting surface. The 40 hubs,f1 hubs and the F100 hubs will not fit flat inside the drum without major cutting of the hub and drum. The other problem is the Buick drum are not made to support a Ford wheel. The Ford wheel will hang out outside the mounting surface. I have done 30 plus sets of Buicks and have investigated all suggested combos of parts. The only combo I would use is the 46-8 hubs and 39-48 Ford backing plates or the Lincolns. The F250 plates are difficult to get spaced right so the shoes are fully covered.
F100 15" wheels will fit over the Buicks with a 1/4" spacer.