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Help ID exact provenance of Ford F1? Spindles
Here's a quandary to ruminate over. I recently procured a set of Ford straight axle spindles, the black set in the 2 pictures. The gray set I have had since the mid 70's, Ford 1937-1940 passenger car spindles, the aptly named round back spindles. Now here's the thing: I'm not sure exactly what vehicle the black set came out of.
Some interesting facts about the F1 spindles: the shape matches 42-48 Ford passenger car front spindles, so-called square back spindles. Further, the king pins match those of the 42-48 passenger car spindles. However the right side spindle does not have a second cross steer boss for another tie rod end. And it wasn't cut off. Close examination shows forging marks on the end, no cutting or grinding marks, in fact there's some corrosion pitting matching the end of the left side spindle. The backing plate bolt pattern and registration boss matches passenger car spindles as well.
The biggest difference, and the one that is the reason why I procured them, is the size of the axle pin (or whatever you want to call it). Any of the passenger car front spindles from 37 thru 48 have the inner, large bearing diameter of 1.187 inch, and the seal boss is 1.563 inches. The outer bearing diameter is 0.75 inch, and the spindle is threaded 3/4-16.
The F1 spindle is quite a bit larger. The seal boss measures 1.750 inches, and the bearing diameter is 1.312 inches. The outer bearing diameter is the same at 0.750 inch diameter and 3/4-16 thread. This is a 19 percent increase in the area at the inner bearing, which will increase load capacity significantly, hence the reason why I procured them.
Finally I'll get to the question: anyone know exactly what vehicle these came off of? I used a similar set of spindles on the first modified I built in the 70's but one of the spindles had a bolt on arm. That didn't matter, as I cut them both off and welded flat plate arms on to get clearance and geometry correct. And they also came off of a Ford F1, but I'm not sure of the year. Might have been 53 or 54.
So any ideas?