HMX – rear suspension rebuild continues

With almost everything I need for the rear suspension rebuild finally acquired, cleaned up and painted, I started putting it all together the other night. One of the most difficult pieces to get, the isoclamp bushings, came from Kennedy American. Like the springs and the anti-roll bar, AMC produced beefier isoclamp bushings for the AMX over the regular Spirit, and the supply of beefier AMX bushings appear to be dwindling.

A dry fitting shows how the isoclamp system sandwiches together. Though when putting it all together, I got to thinking that it could be rather difficult to assemble the isoclamps on the spring while at the same time positioning the spring on the axle.

But I soon realized that if I turned the axle upside-down, I could easily set everything in place by myself. Once I have everything bolted down tight, I only have to flip it back over, roll the old axle and springs out, then roll the new axle and springs in. If it were only going to be as easy as I make it sound…

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What a mess: Lebanon Valley Dragway flooded

We had some heavy rains come through here the other day, but nothing compared to those experienced in West Lebanon, where our home track of Lebanon Valley is located. About eight inches of rain overflowed the creek next to the track, leading to as much as eight feet of water pouring over both the dragstrip and the dirt track, causing widespread damage to the facilities and to the trailers and campers parked on the grounds. In the above picture – those white lines? Those are the Jersey barriers that mark the dragstrip. As of now, we know there’s damage to the shutdown area as well as to the area around the fuel depot. More pics and info at the classracer.com forums, and the local TV news covered the damage.

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SIA Flashback – Stovebolt Six with an Aussie Accent

It’s been a while since we featured a driveReport in SIA Flashback, so let’s pull one from SIA #49, February 1979, of the 1948 Holden. Here we find the first successful and entirely Australian production car, though not the first vehicle that Holden built. We also find a vehicle that was somewhat advanced compared to its American contemporaries, though, ironically, was only narrowly saved from the dustbin of history.

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From the Hemmings Forum: the Cylons’ Jeep

Over at the Hemmings forums, member NigelPattle posted a picture of the above Jeep and said he hasn’t had any luck identifying it yet. He notes that the back has a badge that says “788 Special,” and

I bought the jeep for a stage show 8 years ago and had the engine removed and replaced with several batteries to enable the jeep to be driven on to stage safely with no noise. I was told by the chap who sold it to me that there were only a few made and that this was one of only 8 left in the country.

Looks to me like the Cylons reached the Thirteenth Colony long before anybody else did and developed an affinity for rugged quarter-ton off-road vehicles.

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SIA Flashback – Mr. Morrison’s Mellow Machine

While the editors of SIA surely had a sense of humor, Photoshop wasn’t around then (at least, not as we know it), and the cover date on SIA #46 was August 1978, not April, so we surmise Michael Lamm’s story on Willard Morrison’s unusual idea cars, including some twin-prow cars and his Bug of 1934, is non-fiction. One must wonder what happened to Morrison’s Bug after GM obtained it.

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