I had knock offs on a Buick Regal once. The PO screwed them to the dust caps on the front. They never stayed tight. Going slow all I could hear was clang clang clink clang. They had to go.

Oh yeah, glad to see the Austin getting some love.

 

These are pretty nice, and have coarse threads with a billet aluminum base. They also have set screws to tighten once they're tight, but that would be a pain if I need to turn them to change a tire.

Yeah, the Austin gets more driving than the Camaro lately, so lovin is thin! But I'll be driving the Camaro a lot more now that it's done, and it's getting hard to come up with little things to change or upgrade on either car now!

 

Hmm, blower. On either one, hell both.

 

You must be psychic, or we think alike! I'm selling a few toys and if things work out the Austin may get a 6-71 blower setup! Can't bring myself to chopping the hood on the Camaro though! Guess I could just leave it off?

 

Just got home from the Corbett annual 4th of July parade and festival car show. We took our cars there along with a couple other friends and their non-gassers. This was my wife's first real ride in the Austin, and she did pretty good! I expected a fair amount of comments about the stiff ride, but after the 15 or so miles all she said was, "I think I'll bring a pillow next time if it's a longer ride. The racing buckets have very little padding.
The crowds of families along the route stretch out for miles, and we tossed two bags of candy about 2/3 way through, so we need to plan better next year! It was really a ton of fun, and everybody seemed to really get lots of fun out of seeing the gassers; either because they didn't know what they were, or because they were old enough to know a gasser!
When we reached the top of the hill they tried to flag me into the parking area, and said if I was running hot I could go in, but the Austin's temp stayed dead steady all the way, even with a lot of slow to stop and go driving! This was her first test of that type too, and I was pleased to see she held temp at 190 in pretty warm weather.
Very fun day, too bad it's over. Gotta do a few changes now to improve a couple minor things, so she's ready for Wed. night at Beaches cruise! I want to replace the front shackles with something heavier and an inch longer, and if I can find some stick on foam padding around 1" or a bit less, I'll un-snap the covers on the seats and add that to the seats.

 

Cut up a cheap memory foam pillow.

 

I was afraid the memory foam wouldn't be dense enough for the weight of an entire person, so I dug up some dense foam I found in the garage storage area. Cut a piece big enough to fit the seat bottom and slipped it under the coever, then snapped them back on. Seems a lot better, and only 1" thick, so didn't make the covers look weird.
I was out in the driveway this morning before it got too warm building and replacing the front spring shackles. Found some scrap bar stock at the metal yard that was wider than I wanted, but there's no interference issues, so I got it cheap. Made a pair of shackles that were heavier than the old Austin shackles I reused. Also went to the hardware store and got some grade 8 bolts and locking nuts to put it all together. I spaced the holes slightly farther apart which brought the frontend up another 3/4". Hard to see the difference without measuring it.

 

When I got my suspension sent to me, one of the shackles was ever so slightly tweeked. I called Dave up and the sent a replacement. Anyhow, I now have a great pattern for making new shackles if the need arises. They're 5/16" I couldn't believe how beefy they were.

 

Well today was repair day. When I installed the new shackles for the straight axle I figured I'd make them a bit longer. Unfortunately I also thought I might be pushing the limits of my shock travel by raising the axle, and planned on relocating my front shock upper brackets.
Well today we took a run to Krispy Kreme and when I got home we were looking at something under the hood when I noticed the r. front shock bracket was torn loose. Had to break it the rest the way off, grind the frame smooth, and then drop both sides down about an inch or so to make sure they wont top out on acceleration. Not sure if playing around trying to launch the frontend, or rebounding from a bump did it, but it sure came loose.
Took a few hours, but luckily I had some prefabbed shock mounting plates, so I tossed the old ones I cut off and used new ones.

 

Glad you found it. I would imagine that if its a handful with shocks on, it would be scary with one missing.