rear end bells

grump

Junior Member
Hi, can i put 1935 bells on a 1946 1/2 pickup center section? Also How hard is it to add newer pickup backing plates and drums to earlier rears. Thanks Jim
 
You can use these bells as long as you use the 35-36 axles and the earlier "spider gears" as the later style rears of the 40s were different and mate differently to the axles. You'll see the difference right away once you are into it ..... Mounting juice brakes is the same - bolts up as normal.

I used almost the exact same setup for the car in my avatar, using 36 bells and an open drive 3:54 gear center section from a 42-47 p-up using 40 juice brakes in a 32 chassis.
 

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If you don't have early style axles you will need them. You can use axles from 35 through 41 since they are the same length but as TomT/Williamsburg mentioned you will have to get spider gears that match the axles you use. They changed from 12 tooth spider gears to 11 tooth in 1939. The pinion changed from 10 spline to 6 spline in that same time frame so watch for the proper components to build it up. The best bet would be to find a complete rear axle with serviceable components to use. The banjo center section remained basically unchanged from 35 to 48 but the complete axle assembly got wider in 1942 through 48 by near 2 inches overall.

Juice brake backing plates (Ford /Lockheed) will bolt right up to the early rear axles at least back to 35. You can make them work all the way back to the model A with some mods. Later Bendix types can be used as well but only certain ones will work with the least amount of modification.

Kerby
 
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Be careful with the rear radius rods. With the "skinnier" rear, two things will happen. The front ends of the rods will move in and sort of cross each other instead of coming up to the sides of the lug on the torque tube. Then, if you heat them up at the rear to get the angle right (you'll probably have to heat and bend the lug on the front of the rods too,) you'll find out the the bolt holes in the front of the rods will be just a little forward of the hole in the torque tube lug. (I'm coming up on a similar situation- adapting later shorter radius rods to a '40 rear.)
 
A lot of folks like the 35/36 radius rods because they are heavier than the A thru 34 but still long enough to use as partial replacement of the torque tube in the open drive rear axle conversions plus they bolt up inboard of the brake backing plates and provide a rear spring hanger if desired. Due to this, the damb things are rare and expensive if you do find a set.

As Karl Wolf mentioned in post #4, the 35 & 36 have a different differential carrier housing that uses different carrier bearings (same as 32 thru 34 V8) and mating cups in the bells than the 37 to 48 carriers use. You can use the later banjo with these but the carrier has to mach the bells to get the bearings to work unless some modifications are done. There is a thread on the HAMB about modifying the 35/36 stuff to work with other stuff.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=427272&highlight=1935+banjo

Kerby
 
I found that I could use the 46 Merc carrier (unmodified) and banjo with the 35-6 bearings pushed on, using the 35-6 bells with the smaller bearing cups. This spaced well with the 46 carrier, NO mods... Karl

ps, all this done for the shape of the 35-6 bells and the1946 Merc 3.54 gearset... This Merc had one piece pinion gear AND driveshaft. Both one part!
 
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I'm glad you posted that Karl. There has been more than a few times the Mercury stuff has been found to be different that the Ford. I'll have to get the Mercury chassis parts books for those early models. I did recheck the 28 to 48 Ford Chassis Parts Catalog and as it happens, the bearings are the only difference. The differential carrier is the same on the V8 types from 32 through 48. The bearings are just bigger and the bell tubes on the 37 & later are also correspondingly larger as well.

Kerby
 
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