Yesterday i drove the car and took a video! The seat belts finally arrived, I just need to install them later today.
The car runs great! The car has quite a lot of power! It definitely accelerates better than the V8 did. I replaced all of the ball joints and tie rod ends so the steering has almost no slop.
Some issues that need to be worked out are: The engine transmits too much vibration to the car. Apparently those V8 dodge truck engine mounts are way too stiff for the lighter I4. I may try drilling a few holes in the rubber to promote more articulation of the mount. If that does not work I will modify the mount to accept the larger factory Ford thunderbird mount.
The 8.00-14 bias ply tires are terrible! They are very tall and thin. They do not seem to grip very well. I examined the tire after doing some careful left right rapid turns in a parking lot and observed the tire to flex and roll inward. I should take a video of this! They also seem to follow semi parallel groves in the pavement. I will try and sell them to someone looking to be 50's era correct. I must find a good set of radials to install and perform this white wall treatment:
How to make wide white wall with Krylon Fusion - The VolksRodders Forum
What is a good tire? I have used Falken ziex-912 on other cars and had excellent results. I want to go to a smaller diameter tire at the same time which leads to the next issue.
Starting off in first gear on a hill requires a little bit too much clutch slipping. Also 5th gear at 50mph drops the engine to lower than idle speeds. Around 60mph 5th gear starts to become usable as the low RPM shuddering fades off. This means 3.1:1 differential ratio is slightly deficient in gear reduction. Also the speedometer reads about 12mph slower than my actual GPS verified speed. I think the solution to the situation is to get smaller diameter tires and keep the 3.1:1 differential. The question is how much smaller of a tire? I measured the tire and found it to be about 70cm tall. If I could find a smaller diameter radial it would fix the speedometer issue, make 5th gear useable at 55mph, and make starting off on a hill easier. I found a tire size calculator at
Tire Size Calculator - tire & wheel plus sizing
I put in 225/75-14 as the original size since they did not have 8.00-14 and 185/60-14 as the alternate size. The calculator said it would be a diameter change of 16.65%. Does this sound like a good idea? Would tire rolling resistance suffer by going to a smaller radial?
The front was still sitting up too high so I used an oxy acetylene torch to selectively add many thousands of calories into the bottom three coils on each side. I carefully wrapped the rest of the springs with water soaked rags to help isolate heat transfer. The car is now perfectly level.