Buick Brakes
Well, the decision to go ahead and finish the build on the ‘31 Ford was made. Where do we start? We pulled the body off of the frame, that was easy since it was really just sitting there, not fastened. We set the body aside and concentrated on the frame and running gear. I have had an old aluminum dual 4-barrel manifold hanging on my shop wall for many years. It was intended for a later model engine than mine, but I was able to machine it to fit. We wanted to use the original hydramatic transmission that came with the car. The trans fluid looked clean so we decided to take a chance and use it as is. I have always thought that the aluminum brake drums for the front brakes look cool on a open wheeled car. And I just happened to have a pair that were not too bad to use. The lug pattern on the Buicks are 5“ on 5. The wheels I intended to use were standard Ford pattern, 4.5“ on 5. So that meant we had to very accurately re-drill the hubs to match the Ford wheel pattern. Our old friend , Larry Eckman had shown me how to calculate the lug pattern coordinates for using my Bridgeport mill. There are other ways to do this, but this way worked well.
The car that I built in the 60‘s used an Olds engine that was placed too close to the radiator to allow for a fan. This was before electric fans were a regular thing. It would stay cool as long as the car was moving, even slow. But if I got stopped for any length of time it would overheat. So I made sure that the engine was placed far enough to the rear to allow for a regular engine driven fan. I knew this could cause some problems down the road, but I would worry about that later.
The Model A’s have been a staple in the hot rod world for a very long time. Old Henry made millions of these things and they were affordable. So just about every combination of engines and running gear, steering, brakes, chopped and/or channeled has been done. But, every build is a little different that reflects that person’s taste. To be fair, my son didn’t get to decide much, I sort of had my mind made up about most of it. One of our discussions went like this:
Alfred with the engine in place
Son: “Dad, why are we using this old hard to fit, heavy, hard to find parts for engine? Isn’t there something better to chose?”
Me: “ Yes, many people use a Chevy small block. It fits better, it is lighter, easy to get parts for and makes a lot of power”.
Son: ” …then why don’t we use one of those?”
Me: “because I want an OLDSMOBILE engine. That was what I had back in the day and that is what we’ll use today!”.
Son: ” …whatever”.
– Stay tuned for Part 3 next month
– Submitted by Lanny N.
