'69 Javelin SST on Budget

Axles are back in. End play is more than I'd prefer, but less than what it was before I took it apart. It was .015". It's now .012". There was a thrust block in the Trac Loc carrier even though it had one piece axles. It didn't interfere with them and it was left in. Apparently my other one was worn .003" more than this one. Preferred axle end play is .006". I'd need to lose .006" in shims. There are 2 shims each .030" so there's nothing I can do there other than maybe run one across the belt sander a few times. It wouldn't be very precise. I just left it at .012. Once again, temporary situation.

I got the rear end all buttoned up early Monday morning and had my wife come out to help me bleed the brakes. That all done, I decided to have her stand on them while I crawled around to look for a small brake leak I've suspected for a while. Noticed my Wilwood residual pressure valve for the rear line that I have mounted up high on the firewall was seeping fluid from the 1/8 NPT fitting that goes into the RPV. I tightened it up some and had her step on the brakes again and it sprayed me in the face. Turns out the aluminum valve just split nearly all the way across when I tightened it. Not cool. A new one should be here tomorrow. After ordering a replacement, I read about a company called ECI that makes brass RPVs. If I have issues again, I'm getting one of those. A number of forums complain about the aluminum valves, but the Wilwood tech guy said he'd never heard of any problems.

Also, I got some shims installed to lower my way too high pinion angle and dropped the rear one bolt hole on my extended rear shackles. My transmission is now 3* down toward rear, driveshaft 2* down toward rear, pinion 3* up toward front. If this were a linked rear that'd be pretty good. Not sure about axle torque on the leaf springs.

I'm back to 80-100 hour weeks at work, but I managed to get home tonight around midnight to install the new residual pressure valve and bleed the brakes then test the rear end on the way back to work after dropping the used Trac Loc carrier with my 2.87 gears in it. If I try really hard I can convince myself I'm hearing some slight gear whine, but I may be imagining it. Definitely nothing immediately concerning. Seems solid. I didn't do anything to try to test the posi, but I think I can feel the difference slightly. Or more likely it's completely worn out. Idk.

Also, lowering the rear of the car back down about 1-1/2" made a big difference in handling. It looked cool with that old school rake, but didn't really plant hard in corners. It's much better now, and the beefy ADDCO bars front and rear do wonders for an old muscle car. I ran it up to 125 mph and it was smooth and stable. I had also forgotten about the 2500 stall B&M converter I put in it not long ago. Makes stomping on it from 35 mph a lot of fun. This old girl really runs great at WOT and there's zero hesitation when you stab it with this Quick Fuel carb. With the performer grind cam, it doesn't have much past 5,000 RPM though. Valve stability is good though with the Harland Sharp roller rockers. I've never felt any valve float like I have before with stock springs and stamped steel rockers.

Bottom line, it's fun to drive again. And I'll enjoy it more when I completely rebuild the rear soon.

Yeah, I was playing around with the stance with old school shackles for fun. It's a classic muscle car look and I love it. But it definitely didn't handle the same, and I knew it wouldn't. I still have the shackles on there but I'm at the lowest setting which is only slightly higher than stock.

And I'm not needing to rev more than 5,000 RPM at all. I was just noticing how it falls off around there with this cam profile. This TH350 is setup well and reliably shifts right at 5,000 RPM at WOT. The Edelbrock Performer is a great cam too. It's very torquey right off idle, so it's fun as a driver. And I get good vacuum for my power brakes. I was gonna do something more aggressive, but I had this one new in the box still for a different 360 build, so I used it when I built this engine. I don't regret it at all.

This really is a fun car to drive. The 2.87 gears allow me to keep up with traffic on the highway, but the engine makes lots of torque and doesn't have a problem with the tall gear from a stop. With the 235/60R15 street tires, i'd never even be able to hook up with a lower gear.

I picked up a good looking used set of rear leaf springs that were on a 1968 AMX. Mine are completely flat and starting to get a negative arch at the rear ends of the main leafs. I had 4-5 sets to choose from that were 5 leaf packs. They all had different arches, so I grabbed a set that were around the middle of the range. We'll see how it sits when I get time to install them.

Some time back when I pulled the EFI and went to the Quick Fuel carb, my factory temp gauge stopped working, and without the EFI, I had no temp gauge. So, I FINALLY put in a temp gauge this weekend.

Probably a year ago I ordered a pitman arm from somewhere and finally this weekend pulled the factory arm to replace it. But, somehow I ended up with a manual steering arm. It's identical other than the splined hole for the steering box shaft which is smaller. Gotta order the right one next time.