It is a struggle for me to carry a heavy 60 hour work week, plus a household with my wife (who works a lot, but is not the Good Housekeeping type of dame), and 3-4 cars in as many shops or, need to go to one. So, once I found out this car does not have a/c nor will it have one for many months, I am not really interested in 'taking it out for a spin' as it is not enjoyable for me. Some things can and do work for some, but not on others and vice versa. I only take pleasure of driving my cars when there is nothing left to tackle or to do.
These are the replacement bolts that arrived last week along with a 'standard' bolt lent to me by the alignment shop and you can see the new ones are longer:
The wheels + tires had been mounted, balanced, and the car aligned - so all I had to do yesterday was, once going over to pick up the car - was to get the wheels/tires installed.
Because I am on my own when it comes to things I choose to do on my cars - this was a gamble and a half. There is no available identifiable information relating to this car's suspension, brakes, etc. when it was (re)-built 5 years ago. So, the wheels being 17x8.5 x 4 on Yoko Advans 235/40/17 x4 - had no idea what it would look or turn out. Especially when on another car with 225 tires, I had to go down to 205's in order to make them fit a lot better at the front (and here I am getting 235 front tires). When the car was lowered back on the new wheels, I was apprehensive whether the new bolts would be too big, whether there would be clearance issues, whether the existing 3/4 inch spacers x4 (whether the rears could remain), etc. This next picture is of how close the tire is to the front shock (and I should have gone to a 215 tire), although I am not going to worry about it for now.
The moment I drove the car away within 30-50 feet, I could hear a noise from the car and, another 45 mins. of waiting for one of the techs to say - "you're on your own - we don't have experience on modified cars" then I simply went across town to a place that all they sell is custom wheels/accessories (seemingly to the 4x4 crowd). But, those guys were very experienced, knowledgeable and cool! Placed the car on the rack, lifted the middle portion of the rear, and discovered the noise came from the new bolts touching something. The 3/4 spacers were too aggressive but, they had some lying around (no clue how thick) that we installed:
These are the replacement bolts that arrived last week along with a 'standard' bolt lent to me by the alignment shop and you can see the new ones are longer:
The wheels + tires had been mounted, balanced, and the car aligned - so all I had to do yesterday was, once going over to pick up the car - was to get the wheels/tires installed.
Because I am on my own when it comes to things I choose to do on my cars - this was a gamble and a half. There is no available identifiable information relating to this car's suspension, brakes, etc. when it was (re)-built 5 years ago. So, the wheels being 17x8.5 x 4 on Yoko Advans 235/40/17 x4 - had no idea what it would look or turn out. Especially when on another car with 225 tires, I had to go down to 205's in order to make them fit a lot better at the front (and here I am getting 235 front tires). When the car was lowered back on the new wheels, I was apprehensive whether the new bolts would be too big, whether there would be clearance issues, whether the existing 3/4 inch spacers x4 (whether the rears could remain), etc. This next picture is of how close the tire is to the front shock (and I should have gone to a 215 tire), although I am not going to worry about it for now.
The moment I drove the car away within 30-50 feet, I could hear a noise from the car and, another 45 mins. of waiting for one of the techs to say - "you're on your own - we don't have experience on modified cars" then I simply went across town to a place that all they sell is custom wheels/accessories (seemingly to the 4x4 crowd). But, those guys were very experienced, knowledgeable and cool! Placed the car on the rack, lifted the middle portion of the rear, and discovered the noise came from the new bolts touching something. The 3/4 spacers were too aggressive but, they had some lying around (no clue how thick) that we installed:
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