35 Drums on 36 spindles

3

36FiveWindowCoupe

Junior Member
Hello fellow Ford nuts. I need your help with this one.

I want to use the 35 ford 5-1/2 bolt pattern wheels on my 36 instead of the wide 5s and keep the mechanical brakes.

So my question to ya'll is.....Will 1935 Ford front brake drums fit on 1936 spindles? I understand that the spindles are the same with the exception of the 35 snouts being 5-5/8 and the 36 being 5-3/8.....Do i need to make any mods to make this set-up work? If so, what mods?

Thanks for any help..

John in central Texas :)

"Its never too late to have a happy childhood"
 
There have been some recent posts on this very same subject that cover your questions pretty well. Do a search and see if you can find them, if not, someone here will find them for you.
 
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thanks for your reply.
none of the previous posts really answer my question. they assume i want to run 35 wires on my 36. thats not what i was looking for.
 
36FiveWindowCoupe said:
thanks for your reply.
none of the previous posts really answer my question. they assume i want to run 35 wires on my 36. thats not what i was looking for.
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If you use '35 drums and you are not planning to use '35 or earlier wire wheels, then you would need to remove (grind off) 5 nubs/projections that are cast into the '35 hub to give proper support to the center hub of the wire wheels. Once these nubs are removed you can mount solid steel 5 on 5-1/2 wheels such as '40 to '48, and others. Now once you remove those nubs, you can't go back to '35 and earlier Ford wire wheels unless you use support rings.

Also, another word of caution, if you mount '40-'48, 5 on 5-1/2 wheels on '35 hub/drum assemblies without removing the nubs/projections, it will bend the center of those wheels when the lug nuts are drawn down tight. Don't ask me how I know this since I don't want to embarrass an old friend ;):D
 
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Being a machinist & thinking about it, as the ‘35 drums are desirable as Newc says & you don’t want to alter them I would think you could buy a set of the support rings & modify them with relief in the positions where the nubs on the ‘35 drums are?
 
AnthonyG said:
Being a machinist & thinking about it, as the ‘35 drums are desirable as Newc says & you don’t want to alter them I would think you could buy a set of the support rings & modify them with relief in the positions where the nubs on the ‘35 drums are?
Click to expand...

By doing what you're suggesting, the threaded studs for lug nuts may be too short. As much as I dislike seeing any original parts modified & possibly screwed up, if the nubs are machined/ground off, the drums could still be used with early Ford wire wheels by using steel support rings made from 4" pipe. I've made a bunch of them to mount wire wheels on '40 to '48 drums.

Here's a post from 2017 that gives details on the support rings mentioned above...

https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=218531&highlight=Wheel+support+rings
 
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