Dear WeatherCat fans of a certain rascally wagon,
Biquette has been out of the news because there was one last component needed to allow her to at least get on her larger tires - a new axle. It turns out to be a long story, but I was persuaded to go with a Ford 9" crate axle. That would seem to be an impossible choice but a company called Currie Enterprises has adapted the Ford axle for 1964-72 GM applications:
https://www.currieenterprises.com/64-72-a-body-crate-rearendsOne downside to the Currie product is that you'd better not be in a hurry to get one. It takes about 3 months to have one fabricated. So Biquette and I have had to bide our time this Autumn. However, eventually one such axle found it way to Orinda Classic Car:
As you can see, these axles come with your choice of brakes so Biquette has become the first car in the family with 4-wheel disc brakes.
It wasn't too much of a problem to install the axle as can be seen here:
The new axle fit nicely with all the previous suspension upgrades. However, those brakes . . . . . .
Nice and shiny all right. Alas, they required more fluid than the existing master brake cylinder could deliver. So a larger master brake cylinder and a different design of proportioning valve was required. Also, there was a problem getting transmission gears to match the speedometer to the new tires and rear end ratio. However, eventually this was all straightened out. Yesterday, Biquette was finally able to come home on her beautiful new Diamond-back white wall tires. For comparison, here is a photo taken a few weeks back with her 14" wheels and old tires:
There was a beautiful sunshine, but you can see now "ordinary" those old tires were. Alas yesterday was a cloudy day, but here is the comparison photo:
You can see how much larger the new tires are. The white-walls are also larger and nicer looking (at least in my opinion.) Here is another angle:
Better still, Biquette's beauty most definitely isn't only skin deep! She is performing much better on just about any parameter you can imagine. With the 3.20:1 rear end ratio, she is accelerating better. However to my amazement, nonetheless she is actually quieter! Moving the engine RPM up seems to put it in a better "sweet spot." She is actually easier to control and the transmission is shifting much more smoothly. The brakes are performing very well. I'm definitely very pleased! We have some of those digital speed limit signs that report your speed. I checked the speedometer against those and it does look spot on. So at last I can know what my speed is and can finally start tracking gas mileage.
As always there are still a few details to be settled, but at least Biquette is in large measure "finished" at least as far a the drive-train is concerned!
Cheers, Edouard