May 2006
5/3/06--I forgot to put a bolt on the fender near the door hinges, and when I cranked down on it, the door and fender lined right up. Other than that, just finishing with the POR-15 coating on the rock guard, reassembling the front grill, then replace and adjust the headlights, and drive it a while. I messed with the float levels on the borrowed Road Demon carburetor and got it to go into secondaries without flooding and faltering. Might mess with those some more if I don't get my carb back soon. Also, might adjust the choke as it kicks off too soon and tries to kill the car of you don't let it really warm up.
5/17/06--Not messing with much right now. Got my carb back on a few weeks ago, and it runs fine again. I have been messing around with the suspension to get it to stop leaning. I started with 3/4" lean down toward the driver side at the rear and at the front. I swapped the front coil springs to see if it changed anything, but it stayed leaning. Then I cut a 2" long chunk off one spring with brought it down to 1/2" lean. Swapped the rear leaf springs and made no difference. At one point, I put in a 3/8" spacer between the rear axle and leaf springs, but I didn't feel comfortable driving with it on there, so I took it back off.
Otherwise, put on a different air cleaner (Edelbrock signature round cleaner) and am currently driving without a hood for less weight and cooler engine temps. There is also a squeak that I am trying to pinpoint, but have no idea where it is coming from due to the sound traveling throughout the car with no sound dampening foam or carpet installed. Another guy on the forum asked regarding a squeak on the driver side of his motor, that only starts at 170 degrees. I started to pay attention to mine and found that it kicks in around 170-175 degrees, so I will wait and see what he finds and then see if that is the same source of noise that I have.
5/24/06--I am still not doing too much to the car. I have messed with the suspension a bit to level out how it sits. My goal was to get it within 1/4" of even all the way around. I installed a 1" drop kit on just the passenger side, which got me to right at 1/4" high on the passenger side.
I also bought some 1974 vintage unregistered license plates and got the county to let me put them on. Since I could not find any combination of DELLA or MAVERICK that had not been used on other personalized plates, I figured I could at least put on 1974 plates and register it as a CLASSIC auto. It is old enough to classify it as ANTIQUE but then I could only drive it a limited number of miles, and even then, only to and from shows (I think).
5/29/06 (Memorial Day)--Finally got decent weather (sunny, very little wind) and free time to teach Anna how to do a burnout. I bought new tires (255/60r15) to be installed next week sometime, so figured we better do it now on the old tires. There was not much left when she got done, and you could peel it off with your fingers, it was so sticky, hot, and melted. It left sticky bumps of rubber when we went around turns, even 2 miles later when we got home. Needless to say, we drove home VERY slowly.
5/30/06--After yesterday's burnout, I had to put the new tires on today (212.86, I am going to start rounding...and I am not going to add "consumables" to the total price). They fit really nicely, probably the biggest tire I could "safely" fit under there without further modifications to the rear axle and fenders. I have 1/2" clearance between the tire and the leaf springs, 3/8" between the fat part of the tire and the inside of the fender and 3/4" between the actual tread and the fender, and currently 26" from ground to fender lip. The rims are Cragar S/S 15X8 with 4-1/4" back spacing. I might be able to squeeze in 275s, but I would be dangerously close to fender and spring, especially if I somehow knocked the tire out of round.
Total (rounded) = 5480
