1952 Chieftain brake drums won't come off!!

dualquadpete · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

RE: 1952 Chieftain brake drums won't come off!!

rousifier · Addicted!

Well, far be it from me to say that a person who has difficulty removing Pontiac rims from the 50's is challenged in any way, shape or form. Would prove to be prety self-deprecatory, I'm thinkin'...,

If you can see from my original two (rather large) pics halfway down, the studs are marked with an "L". Like you, I translated this to mean, "...,lever, a big godd**n lever!". A pretty good assumption, I'd say until just recently :).

The solution is simply to undo the left side nuts, (all), while standing on your head with a left handed crescent wrench. (Does this make me a 'guru'?)

Regards and thanks to all,

R.

forespeed · Poncho Master!

Please excuse me while I set down my coffee and go look at the end of the studs on my 50 Pontiac.

Better yet, maybe I should call my 91 year old Dad. No I better not call and ask him which way my nuts turn, probably not a good idea.

rousifier · Addicted!

I would be willing to bet that your broken loose stud could simply be welded into place. Appears to me from close examination that the unthreaded portion of the stud, where it goes through the conventional drum, is crimped into place. There's some kinda' like 'hash marks' around the stud shaft that look a bit like the teeth on a lock washer, only smaller and closer together. Perhaps they placed the studs, heated up the area directly around, and pressed the metal into place around the stud. I wouldn't want to have to continue to search for replacement drums, I don't think.

forespeed · Poncho Master!

OMG, I drive over to my shop, take a look at the studs on my 50 and they have white paint on them. I go over to my cabinet, cut a little piece of emery cloth and proceed to remove the white paint from the end of the studs. Low and behold, there is an "L" inprinted on the end of all my wheel studs.

Long story short, a 13/16 socket, long breaker bar, heavy hammer and I now have the lug nuts removed from the rear wheel of my car so that I can remove the flat tire and put an inflated tire w/rim in it's place. Now, I can push my car around when needed.

I'm so so glad I read this thread. Now I just can't figure out why the bolt pattern on the rear is 4 3/4" x 5 when the information I found online says it should be a 5 x 5" pattern. The car has a trans am sub frame installed on the front so I expected the fronts to be 4 3/4" pattern but the rear appears to be the original differential.

dualquadpete · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Open or closed driveshaft???? Other possibilty is that the axle has been 're-drilled to 4 3/4 pattern??? to keep all the wheels the same pattern & only 1 spare tire.

Jimmyvonviggle · Addicted!

I know this thread is older than dirt, but i thought I would resurrect it. I never knew about the odd thread direction for the right and left hand side of the car either. But that explains why I snapped two bolts on the drivers front wheel.
Funny thing is the back end, even though it says to remove the lug nut the opposite way actually removes in a regular counterclockwise way. That through me off.

In the next little while I am going to show my work through pics to build the information on this for future members.