Hi Irv-
3500 in O/D 4th is a pretty good clip, at least with my A-type overdrive. I'm
not sure if the J type gives you the same ratios. I've driven it that fast a few
times, but I felt lots more comfortable at 125 mph in the BMW I drove in Germany
a few months ago than at 90 in the TR6. I do like to drive "with vigor" at
times, though.
I bought used tires. The rears are (Sears?) Guardsman, the fronts are Hi I'm Bob
specials. They are not particularly high performance type, just basic 70 series.
I was advised against performance tires with the wire wheels. The place I got
them did a nice job of balancing my crappy wheels so the car actually doesn't
vibrate too badly at speed .I've got too many other questionable areas on the
car to invest in new tires at this point. The wheels being one, alignment
another, and the straightness of the frame itself probably the most important.
There's a tendency for the car to drift slightly to the left under hard
acceleration, and slightly to the right when lifting off the throttle. This I
suspect is due to some movement in the rear wheels' attitude on and off-power.
I've tried playing around w/ rear alignment shims without any real change. I
tried a different set of shocks (from my parts car, also to no avail. The whole
suspension is re-bushed (stock bushings). I hung a plumb bob on a string from
the center of each wheel and marked the garage floor, then measured diagonally,
but I didn't get any significant difference in the diagonal measurments (less
than 1/8 inch, which seemed understandable considering the width of the chalk
marks. Is there a better way to do this?
There's a bit more play in the left rear hub than the right, but still less than
in some other car's hubs I've looked at. I thought this might be part of the
problem. But possibly the most serious indication that something's wrong is that
if one looks at the relationship of each tire to the lip of the fender above it,
it appears that the body was pushed in the left rear and right front of the car
simultaneously, shifting the body (rotating, actually) a few degrees
counter-clockwise when viewed from above. In other words, the left rear and
right front tire sidewalls are almost in a vertical line with the lip of their
fenders, but the right rear and left front tires are about an inch or so inside
that vertical line. I know this doesn't necessarily mean the frame is bent, but
it can't be right, unless it was a really bad day at the factory.
Any ideas would be welcomed. thanks-
jb
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