I know a guy, see ...
This guy has an old grass strip for a back yard, and his race car got parked in the grass from 10 a.m. to after midnight last night while we worked. I had to remove the disc brake assemblies for safety reasons (photos), and I wanted drums to replace them so I wouldn't ever have this problem again. The guy had the parts and didn't charge me for them -- then stuck around and did most of the grunt work!
I cleaned all the years of crap off the pieces and painted them up, and we did a lot of head-scratching, but it eventually got done.
Long story short, the early short swing axles provided some headaches during what looked like it was going to be a routine swap of parts. Turns out the drums needed to be shimmed between the axle tubes and the backing plates, so some minor fabrication had to be done.
Gordon, the genius, was there on the phone to answer the 'steel or aluminum?' question. Thanks, Gordon!
The backdrop for this adventure was really very nice. The hangar we worked in has a little 60s-era stunt plane and an old Mustang in it, but there was enough room for the Hoopty after he rolled the third vehicle, his eighth-miler, out into the grass.
He's a certified aircraft mechanic, and the Stearman photo is his current project; a '36 with a Lycoming radial in it that had been flipped over on its back on landing.
Enjoy the pictures. I'll caption them when I can today or tonight.
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