I finally made it to a stopping point on this car today. On Monday this week the THIRD 15X7 wheel came for the car. I took it right down to BradFORD's shop and took a video of him taking it out of the box, mounting it on the wheel balancer, and spinning it up. I was prepared to send the video to Summit Racing in case the third wheel in a row was bent, but thankfully this one was straight. I got the tire mounted and balanced, and by Monday night the car was sitting on all four wheels. Hallelujah!
However, I was still a little concerned about the rear end of the car, in particular the axles and axle seals. As pictured previously, one of my axles had a sleeve pressed on behind the bearing retainer, and the other did not. After some commments from the forum and my friend Kevin, and checking my 69 R code Mach 1 original axles, I concluded that my axles should both have those sleeves. Thanks to Earl (afret) who pointed me towards a source for them, I had ordered one last week and it arrived on Tuesday. Here's a picture:
I had to machine a steel donut with a 1.340" inside diameter to press the sleeve onto the axle, but that was no big deal. So now both axles had the sleeves.
Now, the outside diameter of the sleeve is just about 1.5". But the rear axle seals that I had put in the car had a 1.375" inside diameter. When I had purchased the new seals, I had taken one of the old ones into the local NAPA store and matched up the number, so that I would be sure to get the right seal. But the OD of the sleeve and the ID of my new seals did not compute. The 1.375" ID seal actually looked like it worked on the axle without the sleeve installed. All the original stuff from when I took this apart a few weeks ago is in the trash now, but I suspect that the axle without the sleeve was replaced with the 1.375" ID seal, and the correct 1.5" ID seal was used on the axle with the sleeve. And, it just so happened that I took the seal with the 1.375" ID in to NAPA to get new ones. So, I probably had the wrong axles seals in the rear end.
As a result of this train of thought I bought two new axle seals from Mac's specifically for this car. They came with a 2.26" OD and a 1.5" ID, which looked to be correct for the axles with the sleeves on them. Today I replaced the axle seals I'd just put in a few weeks ago. The one on the side where the axle had the sleeve was beat up pretty good, probably just from the installation, and would have certainly leaked. The other one looked fine, but of course that axle didn't have the sleeve.
After the new seals were installed the rear end went back together without any drama. After dropping the car down on its wheels I took a couple of pictures of it from the side, with the new wheels and tires. I was thinking that the stance looked just about right when the left front was still up on the jackstand, but now I don't think so. Looks to me like both the front and the rear could come down 1"-2". What do you guys think? Here are the pics:
In the rear, I still have the extended shackles on the car that came with it when I bought it. I have one more hole I could drop them down into, or I could just go back to the stock shackles, to get the back end down. In the front, I think I'm going to have to cut the coil springs somewhat, but I will replace them with new springs before I decide to do that. But at this point the stance is a project for another day; right now the car has good brakes and runs, so its going on the back burner for a while yet. I will post more on this thread when I start working on the car again.
