The Ford Barn - Brakes

I'm, not sure if you mean the entire brake assembly or just the drums onto Ford hubs.

Years ago, I had Dave Enmark at Super Bell Axle machine a pair of Ford hubs to accept the Buick drums. He was the guy doing them here in SoCal. Super nice guy. He took out the rivets holding the Buick drums to the Buick hub. Knocked out the studs from the Ford hubs. Installed new bearing races. He chucked up the hub in a lathe and made a cut across the face of the hub to make sure it was flat. You should be able to that in brake rotor lathe. Then he turned down the diameter of the hub, so it was a snug fit into the Buick drum. You could probably do that on a brake drum lathe. He used the rivet holes from the Buick drums to install button-head Allen bolts threaded into the Ford hubs. He drilled the Ford stud holes and pressed in the new studs. I have the Dorman stud numbers somewhere around here. Then he did something I have never seen anybody do when they turned a brake drum. He had just the center of a Ford rim that he torqued to the brake drum simulating the distortion the drum would have with a wheel bolted to it. He machined the drum with that rim center on the drum. The last step was the lip of the Ford backing plate hits the drum, A groove had to be machined into drum for the lip to fit into. He said to look for drums with the least amount of weights. The ones with a lot of weights are because the steel liner was not centered when they cast the aluminum around it. From my days as a fleet mechanic, you need to turn the drums to within .010 of each other. If you don't the car might want to pull to one side. That used to be a question on the California Brake Inspection Station exam.

Once I saw it done there wasn't that much to it, I have a brake drum lathe and a rotor lathe at home that I could use. What I need is a drill press with large enough table for the drum to sit on flat to drill those stud holes. Then ream them to the final size. I have my eye on an old Delta gear driven drill press with a very large table, 220V single phase at a fabrication shop which has been here for fifty-years, it's a beast. He is closing up shop and he wants to sell it but he won't give me a price.