<VV> Notes

[Tony Underwood]

At 09:46 hours 08/15/2006, Bryan Blackwell wrote:
>Bear in mind that if the car has locked the tires, there's *nothing* 
>you can do to the brakes that will shorten the stopping 
>distance.  You need better tires.


Yep.   My functioning brakes comment was to confirm that the brakes 
were doing what they should.   The remaining element is the tires and 
they just slid.


>They don't really need to be wider, although finding good tires in a 
>13 inch size is pretty tough.


...my point exactly.   And even if you do find better tires with 
perhaps wider tread etc it's gonna be hard to fit them onto a stock 
13" rim.

>You could consider going to a 14 or 15 inch steel wheel and hubcap 
>combo, that will improve your tire selection and still look kinda 
>stock if you stay at a 185 or 195 width.


Sure, go aftermarket and use wider rims, or pick up some 14" 4-lug 
Japanese rims and use wider low profile 14" tires that would keep the 
same height...  which would make it difficult to use the dogdish caps 
and trim rings...  ;)   ...although something could be figgered out, 
I imagine.    My old racer buddy Don Keesey did something like this 
with his "sleeper" '64 426 Max-Wedge Plymouth Fury, which came with 
14" wheels and he wanted to keep the original wheel covers but wanted 
a more serious rear tire...  he had some 15" rims banded so as to 
mount 12" wide tires and then had a 14" wheel outer rim perimeter cut 
off the wheel and welded onto the 15" rims so as to be able to mount 
the 14" wheel covers.   It looked fine, not noticeable unless you got 
up to the car and checked closer.

I'm not sure I wanna get that tacky.


Maybe I should just drive more carefully and consider that the car is 
wearing narrow tires which won't stop it as quickly as something 8" 
wide.    I'm not however against using a wider 14" wheel and tire 
combo if I can wangle a way to still keep the factory dogdishes and 
trim rings...  just to be obstinate.

...then I could start in on improving the original '60 style brakes, 
which do tend to fade when they get hot and when diving off an 
Interstate ramp it's not hard to get them hot.

And no metallic brakes, got 'em on the '62 ragtop and don't like them 
much particularly when they're cold, then when they heat up they get 
better; disconcerting when you're not quite sure just how the brakes 
are gonna work when you get on 'em sudden-like.     Of course I could 
get wacko and swap out the early style brakes for late brakes, easy 
for the front but not so for the back.


tony..