Switched rear ends on early 28.

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I was talking with a gent on the phone that was seeking some advice on how to hook up the emergency brakes on his 28 AA. He has the left hand brake lever and the early split brake cross shaft on his truck. I was thinking "service" brakes and he was talking "emergency" brakes. Things were not making sense for either of us until I realized that he must have the wrong rear axle under his truck. No wonder he couldn't figure out how hook them up and make them work. So at some time in the past the latter worm drive rear axle with emergency brakes was put under his truck. I just got a few pictures emailed to me that he son took that confirm it is the wrong axle.
Question for you all is this a simple swap to do with no modifications needed in order to make it happen? I realize that you wouldn't be able to use the emergency brakes without modifiying the cross shaft and moving the hand brake lever. He isn't interested in doing that so I'm sure he will just leave "newer" axle under it or perhaps at sometime in the future put a correct one back in if the opportunity presents itself. Would like to know if there is a modification that was done what it would be. He only lives about 1,500 miles away from me so slipping over to his place for a look see is a bit of a challenge.
Dave

[Brian T]

Hello Dave,
I believe there was a discussion on the Fordbarn regarding this as an upgrade on the model A and still retain the left handbrake, I am sure the AA would be included, I believe they discussed whether it would pass in fine point judging considering it was a safety issue, if I remember it was a factory fix?.

[drtrcrV-8]

If you go back about 7 or 8 "topics" I posted a safety concern about the early '28AA multi-link brake 'mess' & a 'fix' for it by replacing the 'multi-link' with a later single cross-shaft. I didn't mention that the original left side brake handle connects to the multi-linkage with a slotted rod so that it doesn't interfere with the normal brake operation except when needed for parking. Does your friend's 'worm-drive' axle have 2 brake levers on each rear backing plate or only 1? If he has a multi-link mechanism there should only be 1 lever on each backing plate & the single cross-shaft conversion should work; if he has 2 levers, then he should look for a complete brake system out of a later truck & reposition 1 of the cross-shaft levers to match the left-hand brake lever,(or possibly a separate cross-shaft for the 'emergency/park' & hook it up as a dedicated 'E-Brake' only?) I know this gets a little confusing, but if you sketch it out it'l make sense(& be a lot safer than the 'multi-link'!!) ...mah

[Bob C]

You are right Brian.There was a conversion using the left hand brake lever with the one piece cross shaft.
The cross shaft had an extra lever for the hand brake, the shaft was A-2485-ER. The one for the AA
was AA-2485-ER. As far as I know these were for vehicles w/o separate emergency brakes though.

Bob

[Neil Wilson]

Dave,
I extracted this from your post:

"I just got a few pictures emailed to me that he son took that confirm it is the wrong axle.
Question for you all is this a simple swap to do with no modifications needed in order to make it happen?"

From this I think that you are asking - Can a worm drive axle with emergency brakes be installed in an AA which originally had no emergency brakes?

The answer is yes and it is a simple swap (no modifications needed). The emergency brakes can not be use. So, the truck brakes simply functions the same. I have two AA's like this.

With lots of modifications, the emergency brakes could be hooked up. I would not believe that a modified brake system would be accepted for judging. One could contact the MARC and MAFCA judging standards committees and ask the question.

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Thank you Neil. That is exactly what I was after.
He is not looking for a points truck however it is a nice looking truck though. He was really scratching his head trying to figure out how his emergency brakes were supposed to work.
Dave