I am in the middle of a rebuild on the front suspension of my '52 F3 which included new leaf springs, bushings, new king pins, new wheel bearings etc....and of course a completely new braking system installed.

The problem I ran into was when I sussed out new brake drums and took the measurements, it became obvious that there was going to be a 1/4" space between the back plate and the brake drum. This was unacceptable as stones and other foreign objects would easily enter the drum and damage the shoes plus some of the brake shoe was going to be exposed and not pushed far enough into the brake drum = lower braking capacity.

I don't want to thread to turn into a discussion of "sourcing the proper drum" because trust me, we searched high and low and came up with the best drum we could find for my replacement, but the gap existed and needed to be resolved. So....

What I wanted to show those of you that have experienced this is a "back plate spacer" I had made at my local machine shop. This spacer was welded on the back of my backing plate and pushes the backing plate out 3/16" of an inch so that the shoes are no longer exposed and the gap between the backing plate and brake drum no longer exists. In the pictures below, you'll see a wooden mock-up of the spacer I made out of mdf board. This allowed me to "play around" with different thicknesses and do mock build ups to make sure everything would bolt up properly. I then went to my local machine shop and they whipped out 2 spacers for me.

I had to replace the 4 sided 1/2" bolts that Ford provided originally which bolts the backing plate to the spindle. I installed 1.5" grade 8 bolts due to the backing plate being pushed away from the spindle by 3/16" but this bolt up went really well. I argued with myself about whether this spacer should act like a "gasket" or "washer" (i.e. not welding it to the back plate), but when I thought of the forces on the backing plate and how I pushed the plate off the spindle hub by 3/16", I thought I'd better weld the spacer onto the backing plate to ensure braking rotational forces, and more importantly lateral forces, could be sustained by the revised backing plate.

The benefits of doing this spacer were to get rid of the 1/4" gap so stones and crap wouldn't enter the braking area but also, it pushes the shoes further into the drum so that no brake shoe is exposed and you have full braking power inside making contact with the brake drum.

Hope this helps some of you with a similar problem.

Here are some pictures and I'll likely add a couple more here in a while showing the new bolts and how it bolted up in the final build.


View showing the 1/4" gap between the brake drum and the backing plate.





Mdf wooden mock up spacer. (painted black)





Mdf wooden mock up spacer. (unpainted)





3/16" spacer welded onto backing plate.





3/16" Spacer welded onto backing plate.





Bolt up from behind using old OEM 1/2" bolts which weren't long enough.





View showing the final build up with the gap completely closed. The shiny part of the drum now actually extends slightly into the backing plate lip.

 

Most clever, hope it works out for you.

 

Mo Betta. Pretty slick idea. I haven't got to my brakes on my F3 yet. No drums available I take it?

 

New grade 8 bolts holding the backing plate on. (rear view)





New bolts (front view)





Brakes and spindle installed on extended backing plate.





New drum installed on extended backing plate.

 

Thanks for the compliments guys, but I have to come clean.

I'm a novice at this restoration thing....learning curve is steep and I'm having the ball of my life, but I do owe it to the fact that I'm being mentored by an 82 year old gentlemen that has become a very good friend of mine in the process.

As for the backing plate spacer idea, I actually owe that to JobLot Automotive up in Queens New York. It was their idea when they were piecing my "parts list" together for me when I was ordering all the new brake system parts.

I only took the idea and ran with it, but thanks all the same.

Now Scotty, you asked about the availability of the drums and shoes. You'll find that the exact OEM parts aren't available any longer for the 52/53 F3 trucks, but I was schooled by a couple folks that '56 and later drums and shoes will work on our trucks.

I could bore you to tears with old parts codes, new parts codes and measurements, but what I ordered from JobLot, and they're likely available elsewhere, were:

Fronts: Drums C3TZ-1125-C and the corresponding shoes are 33B-2001. You'll see that these drums and shoes are 12 1/8" diameter where OEM were 12".

Rears: Drums B6D-1126-A and the corresponding shoes are also 33B-2001. The rear drums are a perfect fit on all accounts. They have the 3 anchor holes and the drum to back plate spacing is "tight" - perfect. No mods required, but they are also 12 1/8" in diameter like the fronts.

The fronts of course resulted in this thread, due to the 1/4" gap that was created between the plate and the drum....and the rest is history as they say.

I highly suggest when it comes time to re-do your brakes, getting hold of JobLot (or similar) as they have resources that I could not find on line and made my life so much easier trying to suss parts for my entire rebuild.

 

Thanks for the heads up! I have a 1972 Dana 60 for the rear ready to go so looks like I'm good for the rear brakes.


I was thinking of 8 lug discs up front but undecided so far. If I do I want to adapt Ford calipers. I really don't want GM parts on my Ford if I can help it.


I'm not a Chebbi hater. I don't like Fords in Chebbys and Chebbys in Fords. Just weird about stuff like that.