Archive for December, 2009

Listen to this video… you’ll see what I am talking about.

I took off the drums, ground down the edges of the weights on the drum so they won’t touch the Cragars any more. Put the drum back on. Ran the car – crap – still squeaks. I took the drum off and ground down the edges of the metal part of the brake shoes a few thousandths. Put the drum on. Still squeaks. Must be the brake shoes themselves. Then I put the wheel back on and turned the tire… yeah there’s a section where it gets harder to turn and a section where it practically free wheels. Hmm. I did notice that if I applied the brakes just a tad the squeaking goes away. Ok… so… raised the back of the car way up, got under it, adjusted the brake shoe on that wheel so its a bit tighter. Jammed a spare tire under the passenger side wheel, started the car up, put it in D. Passenger tire turns while idling… and no squeak! Woo hoo!

So this means the shoe or drum got warped when we put the Cragars on that drum and tightened it down without realizing that drum had weights on it. We trimmed some height off those weights on Keven’s metal lathe but I think the damage was already done. I’m going to run it as it is now since eventually I’m going to get a whole new rear end and driveline anyway. At least there is no embarrasing squeak now.

I also added some battery hold downs and put on a coolant overflow recovery kit.  They are required to run the car at the track.

Some pictures…

My first race is in a couple of weeks. I’ve taken the Dart out yesterday to go to the store and did a couple of WOT sprints on the back roads and she seems to handle it ok. The carpet interferes with the pedal operation a little bit at WOT (its bumpy in the area) and I’ll need to do something about that. I am also missing an overflow catch can – they’ll definitely spot that at tech. I’ll get one and a little hose and bolt that on the Dart. Then the drivers side rear drum is squeaking a little bit. There are weights on top of that drum and when we put the Cragar on it
pushed on the weight and distorted the drum and made the brake pad rub on the side where the weights are. We used a metal lathe to cut some of the height off the weights and got the wheel to spin freely. But now I can hear a tiny bit of a squeak squeak squeak squeak from that wheel when I drive so I am going to get out my grinder and grind the weights down some more. Then its ready for the track, faulty accelerator pump and all… LOL!

I am tied for #7!!! Woo hoo. They say they have never gotten a tie for any of the top 10 positions before. Hmm.

In the photo sitting in front of me is Robert G… and yes BOTH those gigantic trophies are his. One for being #1 in Pro and the second for being rookie of the year. My trophy is the little one hiding behind his. I also got $50, a couple of T-shirts (one which says ADRA Pro Top 10) and a muscle car calendar.

We also participated in the Chinese auction… got away with a gift bag for Willow and a fajita making machine. LOL…

Good times…