Wire wheels on a 36

Brian said:
john, I had to face a bit off the back of the nut.
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Okay, thanks Brian, that's what I recall reading here some years ago when I was trying to determine what I would need to do to be able to switch back and forth between using '35 wires, '40 solids, and '36-'39 wide 5's whenever I felt like changing the looks of my traditional hotrod.
 
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deuce lover said:
Learned a great deal on this. So in the end the '35 drum will work on the '36 spindle with some mods.
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Yes, and conversely, a '36 drum/hub will work on '35 spindles with some slight mods, such as an extra washer under the spindle nut.
 
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John, I'm not quite so sure of that....from memory, the 35 nut is about 1/4" thicker than a 36 nut, so I 'think' all that is required is using the correct nut to suit whatever way around one is fitting these components. I 'think' the only reason I had to face 1/4" off my 35 nuts to make 'em work on 36 spindles, is because I didn't have 36 nuts.
 
Careful what you do, fellas, if you disobey the unwritten rule of putting earlier wheels on a later car the earth will tilt off it's axis.
Later wheels on an earlier car appears to be doable with impunity.
Mart.
 
Brian said:
John, I'm not quite so sure of that....from memory, the 35 nut is about 1/4" thicker than a 36 nut, so I 'think' all that is required is using the correct nut to suit whatever way around one is fitting these components. I 'think' the only reason I had to face 1/4" off my 35 nuts to make 'em work on 36 spindles, is because I didn't have 36 nuts.
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I'll check into this by assembling some actual parts and see what it looks like.
 
Here are a couple pictures I came across that I had taken earlier for some reason or another.

Pre '36 spindle with a '36 up hub showing the difference when using a thin late or early tall nut.

Now some of the later hubs will either need the earlier tall screw-in dust cap to clear the end of the spindle.

If your later hubs have drive in dust caps you may find many versions of the caps are too shallow. We have in the past had to cut a little off the end of the spindle for clearance.
 

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I would always run the wide fives by choice personally. The next would be to go with 40's. Think the hub and drum from a 40 will bolt on. Grated if you have backing plated and hydro brakes. Think the spindles will work... but I could be wrong.


Wires are nice. Sell the wide fives if you go that way.
 
I for the life of me can't understand the attraction of using wire wheels on a '36 Ford.
I know the bolt pattern on the '35 and earlier wires is 5 on 5.5, however the wires weigh five pounds each more than the '36-39 wheel.
I can understand the thinking behind using the '40 and later wheel on hydraulic brake conversions, did that myself when I converted my '36 to hydraulic brakes by using a '41 donor car for the conversion.
After many generations of hub cap loss due to theft, I finally went to '46 Ford caps and trim rings which ended the theft problem. In 1963 I went back to the stock '36 wheels, '39 drums and '36 caps.
As I have matured with age, I have become very fond of the stock look of correct hub caps and trim rings.
 
The wire wheels can be run on the hydraulic type drums/hubs but the would need the rings for proper wheel support. The later drums are a lot easier to find than the 1935 types. Id go with the Lincoln/Bendix type brakes myself though.

If a person is going to modify the they might as well put better components on there.
 
rotorwrench said:
The wire wheels can be run on the hydraulic type drums/hubs but the would need the rings for proper wheel support. The later drums are a lot easier to find than the 1935 types. Id go with the Lincoln/Bendix type brakes myself though.

If a person is going to modify the they might as well put better components on there.
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I was going to mention the fitment problem using early wire wheels on hydraulic drums, figured that was a problem that most people know about.
Using improperly fitting wheels/tires on a vehicle is a sure path to disaster.
I like the line that "Super" coined many years ago on a forum, "The most dangerous person in the world is a farm kid with a welder"..
Case in point, many years ago I purchased a '35 International 1/2 ton pickup at a farm sale in Montana. The truck was a very nice truck that appeared to be stock. When I lifted the hood, wow! there sat a '51 Olds Rocket 88 V8 w/hydromatic trans. It was not until I got the truck on the trailer that I discovered the suspension was stock '35 International with mechanical brakes. That would have been a thrill to keep on the road and stop with all that power.
 
Actually, done right and if in good shape, I don't see a real problem here. As long as no large loads were to be carried, the truck's brakes should have been fine for regular driving. A '51 Olds was 135 HP, a far cry from the 400-600 HP engines people are commonly using now. Admittedly, I'm not an expert on 1935 Internationals, but from what I do know, you would probably be looking at 2-300 lbs. weight increase and about 50 more HP. Done prudently, I'd drive that all day as long as it cooled well.

People on this very forum swear up and down that done right, Ford mechanical brakes are as good as the early hydraulics. I would expect International brakes to be as good or better than the Fords, being purposely made for trucks rather than cars.
 
My Grandad had the old IH 6-speed Specials but they predated the 1935. They gave the Model AA trucks a run for their money. The 35 IH C-1 pickups were really nice trucks but they had a weird brake drum and hub set up. The inner bearings were in the drum and the outer bearings were in the hub so getting parts for those would be a real challenge. Boy it would run out with a Rocket 88 engine & trans set up. A lot of folks changed them out for early 60s Ford pickup brakes when the old ones gave out but it took some work to get the stuff in there.

I think that there are disk brake conversions for the C-1 available these days.
 
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