Replacing Ford banjo rear end races

Banjo Races.  It's not what it sounds like!  The ends of the Ford banjo axle housings are actually wheel bearing races.  The roller bearings inside the rear brake drums roll on these races.  After 70 years of use sometimes these races get galled, especially on the bottom where most of the weight of the car does the most damage.

I had the races redone on my banjo rear end by a competent machine shop with a lathe with a big bed capable of handling these big axle housings.  They cut down the old races just enough to slip on new races that are heated and expanded and then pressed onto what's left of the old races.  When cooled, these form a tight fit.

Then of course, you need brand new roller bearings for the rear drums packed in grease and sealed.

Making a '40 rear spring fit a '32 rear crossmember

I'm back!  In case you were following my old blog, I had start a new blog thanks to blogger deciding to close out my old one!  the old blog is @ http://builda32fordroadster.blogspot.com/

My name is Ed Gallagher by the way and I found this '32 Ford chassis or, it found me on Craigslist and I bought it on Feb 10th 2010.  I decided to build the king of all rods, a '32 roadster.

Ok, where was I, oh yeah I'm using a '40 Ford banjo rear axle and since I'm not changing the rear crossmember, I needed to find a way to use that rear end with the stock '32 crossmember and keep the wheelbase correct which is 106 inches on a '32.  You can not use a '32 rear spring with a later banjo rear end because the '32 rear is built for the '32 spring only and the later banjo rears are built for  the later style rear spring only.

So, I found out that if you grind notches in the rear leaves of a '40 rear spring to fit the weird curves of the '32 crossmember, it'll work and keep the wheelbase correct and the square head of the bolt in the center of the spring would come up through the square hole in the crossmember.

Yes, it all worked but it was a boatload of work!  It was a ton of grinding and fitting.  I did eliminate half of the leaves and I rerolled the spring eyes in the main leaf to lower the car.

The leaves also needed a lot of grinding to get rid of the rust in between the leaves.  You could also have those media blasted or chemically stripped, that's what I'd recommend!