I wanted to do this thing right. Honest.
It started when I discovered that on both sides of the car, the bolt that goes through the parking brake shoes, brake housing and Rocky Mountain brake band brackets was held on by an ordinary hex-nut.
I wondered whether this was an intentional part of the design and pulled off one of the nuts to see whether there was a cotter pin hole in the bolt. Sure enough, there was.
Wanting to do things the right way, I went and got a pair of castle-nuts, but because the original bolts were now also transfixing the double brackets of aftermarket Rocky Mountain Brakes, I couldn't get a castle-nut down far enough on either bolt to engage a cotter pin.
Dan Treace suggested drilling a hole through the original nut and pinning it—an elegant solution—but did the newbie follow his good advice? Noooooo!
I decided that if Mr. Ford thought this bolt should be fastened with a castle-nut, then by the hammer of Thor, it would be! I'd simply modify the nut and MAKE it fit. The nut went in the vice and out came the hacksaw. After a little huffing and puffing, I had a nice, short castle nut. But it wasn't short enough. Not wanting to sacrifice any more threads, I took out my handy-dandy Dremel and whittled two of the castellated valleys deeper into the nut so the cotter pin would go through. The result didn't look anywhere near as strong as the other too-tall-to-fit, but still structurally sound castle nut. Even with that, I still hadn't removed enough metal to get the pin through. Hmm.
Okay. Maybe lock-nuts were the answer. I got a pair of those and of course, they were too tall to engage the nylon locking ring. Again, I hacksawed away at the bottom of the nut, but even this shorter version wasn't short enough to lock onto the bolt.
Obviously, the only right way to do this was to get a longer bolt with a cotter pin hole in it. The corner hardware store didn't have any and neither did Pep Boys or the local car parts store. It was weekend, so I couldn't yell for help from the Model T catalog parts suppliers. Okay, I'd buy a pair of standard, 8-grade bolts and drill 'em myself. I made up a drill alignment gadget by drilling a hole in one of the aforementioned lock-nuts and used it to drill the neatest cotter-pin hole you ever did see in a bolt.
Problem was, the parking brake housing was threaded and the bolt was supposed to screw in all the way. The longer bolts were only threaded halfway up the shank. Oh, I said some bad words.
Sometimes, you just can't win for losing. Dan Treace had been right all along. I stuck the original hex-nuts in the vice and drilled 'em for the pins. The difficulty with this arrangement, of course, is making the bread and butter run out at the same time. It wasn't like a castle nut that you could always manage to tighten up just enough to get to the next castellation. The result was a little better than finger-tight when the holes were lined up for the cotter-pin. Weakening the nut further with more holes didn't seem like a good idea. The time for bald-faced cheating had arrived.
I drowned the threads in LOCTITE and even injected some into the cotter-pin holes. I screwed and pinned everything together and dem bums ain't goin' nowhere.
Done!
Good Job! It's Tuesday...the supply house are back open. :-)
Bob
Nice..!
You went around the block but got the job done!
As for the loads there, anchor bolt for the brake shoe is threaded thru the backing plate as you found out. So the strength is there. That nut just keeps the bolt from wanting to turn and get loose. Plus for me the bolt didn't need to be tight on the cast shoe, a little wiggle was necessary. The nut then performs the duty for holding the bolt head in proper gap needed.
The Rocky Mtn brake kit supplied longer bolts for this place, but like your install, the original Ford bolt fit better, as that bolt is short, the fix you made for the nut is well enough!
One answer to not enough thread on a bolt is to add some. There are times when tap & die set comes in mighty handy.
Isn't amazing Bob how something that looks so simple at first, can turn into an absolute cluster (you know what) before you get done.
Steve, I picked up some additional tap and dies at a local auction for a song. My experience with number 5 bolts is that they are fairly easy to run a die onto them with good results. The #8's however, tend to chip and pull the edges off them and are much more difficult to thread, even with good cutting oil. Do you get good threads cut into #8 bolts with your dies?
Noel
All you'll wind up with trying to thread unannealed grade 8 cap screws is shot dies.
If you have any luck threading a grade 8 cap screw it's not "real" grade 8.