I just bought a Henry J!

[Henry's HenryJs]

What an impressive build. As a 30+ year now retired machinist I can appreciate the work you have done to the front end. There should be a STICKY(?) somewhere with the spindle/ bearing/ caliper info so it is easily found. Looking forward to more of your build.

[Vagabond Russ]

Jesse, met In San Rafael.  Nice Job on your J. Will the disc brake rotor fit the stock wheel bolt pattern?  If so, will the stock 15 x 4 wheels clear everything? 

[whatwouldjessedo]

Jesse, met In San Rafael.  Nice Job on your J. Will the disc brake rotor fit the stock wheel bolt pattern?  If so, will the stock 15 x 4 wheels clear everything?

Hi Russ,
These rotors have the standard Chevy pattern: 5 x 4.75", so they won't fit the stock Kaiser wheels. My Henry J had a GM 10-bolt rear axle from an S10 in it when I bought it, so I decided to match the front with the back by using S10 front brakes. By doing so, I know the front/rear brake bias will be correct and the lug patterns will all be the same. And since I have a lot of experience with the GM stuff, it was easy for me to work with.

It is possible to redrill the GM rotors with the 5x4.5" pattern. I'm not 100% sure, but these GM rotors redrilled with a Ford pattern should work, but might need a different bearing: http://www.jegs.com/i/AFCO/921/9850-6511/10002/-1

[Vagabond Russ]

Jesse, here's a sketch of the center grille support channel..  It is a formed channel, looks like 18 gauge steel, with two tabs at the top and bottom for mounting to the radiator support.  Picture enclosed.

Mounting a 1951 grille to a 1952 up Henry J requires much more than just the grille assembly.  The 1951 front (and early 1952 rear) bumper is flatter than the later J's.  1951 bumper guards will be required. This requires a different front bumper mounting bracket, 1951 left and right front bumper covers, and the fender to fender front stone deflector.  The 1951 core support may also be different. Picture enclosed.

Chroming the bumper will cost a grand, bumper guards $125 each, the 7 piece grill assembly with parking lamps will bring the bill to an easy 2K$.  Add in the hood lower chrome mouldings and lower fender mouldings for another $500.  Picture enclosed.

In my opinion, the cool looking Henry J 1951 grille with the 1952 rear fender tail lights is the ultimate. bit29ing HJ car.

Jesse, you're welcome to come look at my car.  I'm in the chrome assembly phase now.

[whatwouldjessedo]

Jesse, here's a sketch of the center grille support channel..  It is a formed channel, looks like 18 gauge steel, with two tabs at the top and bottom for mounting to the radiator support.  Picture enclosed.

Mounting a 1951 grille to a 1952 up Henry J requires much more than just the grille assembly.  The 1951 front (and early 1952 rear) bumper is flatter than the later J's.  1951 bumper guards will be required. This requires a different front bumper mounting bracket, 1951 left and right front bumper covers, and the fender to fender front stone deflector.  The 1951 core support may also be different. Picture enclosed.

Chroming the bumper will cost a grand, bumper guards $125 each, the 7 piece grill assembly with parking lamps will bring the bill to an easy 2K$.  Add in the hood lower chrome mouldings and lower fender mouldings for another $500.  Picture enclosed.

In my opinion, the cool looking Henry J 1951 grille with the 1952 rear fender tail lights is the ultimate. bit29ing HJ car.

Jesse, you're welcome to come look at my car.  I'm in the chrome assembly phase now.

Thanks for the drawing Russ!

I agree that the '51 grill and fender tail lights is the best look, and exactly what I'm hoping to achieve. I have the '51 grill and surrounding trim, I'm so far just needing the support brackets. I think I'm going to use something else other than stock for bumpers though.

[whatwouldjessedo]

Today I bought a new pair of S10 rotors and some new hardware to mount the calipers brackets. The wheel bearings I sourced do fit perfectly in the rotor hub, so that's good.

I used 2.75" 3/8 fine-thread grade 8 bolts to attach the caliper brackets. The Henry j spindle flange is machined on the backside to make a flat spot for the backing late bolt nuts to rest, but they are not all machined to the same depth, so a test fitting of my bracket proved that I was going to have to shim at some of the bolts to get the bracket to mount parallel to the rotor. I used a few .010", .015", and .020" 3/8 shim washers and after a  little trial and error (and only a total of 4 shims on two bolts) I got the bracket to sit right.

I them test fitted the caliper and everything so far is looking great!

[rjbruins]

Jesse, I'm currently building a 51 HenryJ and am using 1967 Camero  bumpers. They look great and fit the body shape nice.

[Henry's HenryJs]

Jesse, I'm currently building a 51 HenryJ and am using 1967 Camero  bumpers. They look great and fit the body shape nice.

I also heard that Corvair bumpers fit.

[whatwouldjessedo]

Jesse, I'm currently building a 51 HenryJ and am using 1967 Camero  bumpers. They look great and fit the body shape nice.

Thanks for the tip. I just looked them up and can see how they would fit pretty well, and there are repros available for pretty cheap!

~Jesse

[whatwouldjessedo]

I took some time off from working on the Henry J. It's been a busy couple of months with work and other projects, oh, and getting married! So now that the wedding is over and things are back to normal I can go back to my normal past times...

I finally have the front suspension reassembled so the car is back on 4 wheels and is a roller. I had the lower A-arms sandblasted, then I took them to a friend to weld in 3/16" plates to the bottoms of them to mount tabs for a cross-bolt mount shock. I found a pair of Bilsteins on Craigslist that are meant for a 1980 camaro. The length is perfect for the ride height I'm going for. After my buddy welded up the shock tabs, I painted the arms with one coat of Por-15 and a couple coats of black Rustoleum.

I also cut 1.5 coils off of the stock springs in hopes that it will result in the right ride height. It was a complete shot in the dark, so we'll see if the ride height is right once I get the engine & transmission in the car. As it is, it looks promising.

I kept considering cleaning and painting the upper a-arms and the front area of the frame, but I decided that I didn't want to postpone reassembly because I still want to get this car running asap.




This isn't a great shot, but it shows the shock tabs we welded to the bottom of each arm.This allows for a lot more shock options.



Here's a shot with the rotor installed. I call this success! My plan came together: modern, powerful, easy-to-source disc brakes on a Henry J without resorting to an aftermarket IFS clip.


And here's what it looks like with the wheel mounted:


And finally, here it is back on all 4 wheels! I'm expecting the front to drop another 1.5 inches or so once the engine is installed. The Buick 215 that's going into it is probably half the weight of the original straight 6 so the spring rate will be relatively stiffer than how it was in stack form. You also get to see the '51 style grill loosely installed. Next weekend I'll roll it into the garage and see about dropping that buick V8 into the engine bay!

[joefrazer]

Looks good!

And congratulations!

[MarkH]

Really nice looking work!

[Henry's HenryJs]

Great work!! Would you post the bearing numbers and seal you used.

[whatwouldjessedo]

Great work!! Would you post the bearing numbers and seal you used.

Here's what I used:
Outer wheel bearings: Timken LM11949/LM11910
Inner wheel bearings: Timken SET6 (LM67048, LM67010)
Seal: Timken 8871

Note that this seal only works because I made a collar to increase the diameter of the spindle seal surface. The closest I could find that would work without the collar is TIMKEN   472164, but you would need to shim the outer diameter of the seal between it and the rotor.

[Henry's HenryJs]

Thanks.