This subject seems to come up alot on the HAMB, “How do I fit hydraulics to my Model ‘A’ “. Hopefully this should show how to fit said brakes the CORRECT way.
My Model ‘A’ came already fitted with hydraulic brakes, but the more I studied them the more things I noticed were wrong with the way they were fitted. The true horrors weren’t discovered until they were actually removed from the car.
I decided the best way forward was to start again with a fresh set of backing plates.
ere is your basic ’39-’48 Ford backing plate. In this case they are the later ’46-’48 plate as they have the riveted rather than bolted bottom pivots. You will also need the correct hubs and drums as the original ‘A’ ones will not work with the hydraulic backing plates.
We’ll start with the fitting of the front brakes first.
This is the stripped hub. You’ll need a front fitting kit which consists of 2 bearing spacers and two backing plate spacer rings. You can see how these are mounted to the hub.
Take care with the backing plate spacers as they are cast iron piston rings and will break easily if forced.