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RWA/SWA & shipping

To: british-cars@hoosier
Subject: RWA/SWA & shipping
From: gerry@hostel.lincroftnj.ncr.com
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 15:01 EST
>The main advantage to the rounded wheel well is the option of using
>slightly oversize tires.  I'm running 155/80R13, which is about as large as
>one can go in the square wheel wells.

> That is, without modificat:ion, of course.  Joe Haddon has a as,
> square arc:h midget around he1re that he's runni
> ng 8.5 inch (I believe)

Last year I converted my square-wheel arch (SWA) Midget to round-wheel arch 
(RWA)
I found somewone with a RWA Midget, and made a template out of heavy brown 
paper, 
transferred the template on to my car and got the Sawz-all out !! I put a very 
slight
lip in the inside of the wheel arch. It can outr looking exactly like a RWA 
Midget.

The reason I did this was to fit 205/60 tyres on 6" Vega wheels, as I was going 
to
hill-climg the car last year. The car now looks VERY muscular. It handles like 
a 
dream - actually more like a go-kart. After the front-tyres wear out I shall 
change 
to 195/60 tyres, because the 205 tyres tend to follow all the road 
irregularities 
and makes driving long-distances a bit tiring.

Driving in the rain on these tyres is INTERESTING to say the least. If there is 
any
standing water, the car will hydro-plane above 40 mph, but in the dry it is 
another
story.

I did put 1/4" spacers on the rear drums as the tyres would fould slightly on 
the
inner wheel-wells (even with a panhard rod).



On transporting cars across the pond :

When I brought my car from England it cost me $700 in 1984. Last year I was 
going to
bring another car over and I found out from the shipping company (ACL) that it
would cost $500-$800 depending on the length of the car. This was using the 
roll-on/
roll-off ferries. Not too expensive when you consider that some cars are dirt 
cheap
in the UK compared to the US (ie Mini's)

Gerry


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