After another long pause, I'm back on the PV Project. Last Friday I had to move my PV out of the garage to do some cleaning, so I aired up the tires, dropped it down off the jack stands, started it up, & pulled it out. But I didn't stop there - I continued out the driveway and onto the street for a quick neighborhood blast (no muffler yet). This was the first time this project had actually moved on its own power since I started the rebuild/restore back in 2002 - what a gas! All systems seemed to work ok except the brakes were very "wooden" & didn't work well - more on that later.

After my quick blast I couldn't help noticing how low the car seemed in the front; I suspected sacked-out springs. I crawled under to take a look & with weight on wheels I measures ~ 1 1/4" of clearance between the rubber snubber on the lower A-frame & it's stop. Later I jacked up the front end to inspect the brakes & measured ~ 4 1/2" clearance fully extended. I guess this confirms the front springs are sacked out, but I was wondering if there were any specifications available, like in the Green Books, that would identify the nominal ride height. Also wondering if there was a quick & dirty fix, like a spacer block fitted on top of the spring to get the ride height up.

I had previously replaced the wheel cylinders, brake shoes, and rubber brake hoses at all four corners, and replaced the M/C too. The system bled up fine with plenty of pedal, but that was a few years back. On my ride the brakes didn't pull at all but they didn't do much for slowing me down. I was applying so much foot pressure that the shaft of the pedal was bending & dragging heavily on the hole in the floorboard. I pulled the right front drum to see what was going on & found everything to be in order but only about 1 1/2" of each brake shoe showed signs of contacting the drum. I haven't tried to locate a brake shop that has the tools to radius shoes to a drum, but that may be in order. I've heard of people radius-ing brake shoes on motorcycles by attaching some self-stick sand paper to the drum, reinstalling, & spinning over by had while advancing the adjuster. The linings are first colored with a pencil, and when all the pencil marks are sanded off, the shoes match the radius of the drums. Open to suggestions.

Appreciate your opinions & thanks for your time!

Joe in St Louis