Tuesday nights tautology

Some of you have heard me mention about the possibility of my dropped axle bending...still unsure about this, but the square of the floor isn't wrong...about 3/8th difference on the RH side, and 5/8th on the LH side..maybe time to fix it!!

And while we're fixing things...have you checked your tyres lately? Hot rods tend to see years go by without wearing any tread, problem is sometimes the "shelf life" might catch up on us. These tyres are on my Americans, that went on the Tudor about 3 years ago...I had them for a few years before fitting them, so in total, I've done maybe 5000 miles on 'em...this is the OK one, see how it is still relatively flat across the tread..

Now the other side...it had blown out of shape in about a 12" area...I probably wouldn't have known except I have these on my project roadster while I run my Halibrands on the Tudor....this could have been bad if it let go....Mal Case had a rear let go in the middle of traffic...scary!... It is easy to work out when the tyres were made from the coded markings..sort of...prior to 2000, if it has, say 019, like mine did, that means they were made Jan 1999..(or it could be 1989, or 1979), but after 2000, it will say e.g. 0411, which is April 2011....I "googled" this info on how to de-code them. Another tyre that almost let go on me was a BF Goodrich on my Landcruiser...I had been to Cape York and Darwin...thousands on Kms, got home, checked tyres and their were chunks missing and steel exposed....but still good tread.....this was in 2010...the tyres de-coded to 2001 manufacture!!...So better make this an item you check from now on!

 

Back to fitting my fuel line on the roadster...I was short 3 clamps!..I needed to make some line clamps and found this scrap of sail track left over from my caravan...hard to see, but the extrusion lends itself to the correct shape for a 5/16" or 3/8th line...saved me going down the road to buy some more line clamps

I wanted to run the fuel line at the top of the rail, but the exhaust will be right up near it, so I welded about 30" of 3/4" flat near the top of the rail, so it will act as a heat shield...well, that's my theory anyway! The home made clamps are on this section where they are not visible from below. Just need to finish the front of the line, and make up the clutch cylinder linkage, and I can re-install the 350/toploader combo, then it will be time for the exhausting work..haha.