North Main - Chapter Seven

Although I really wanted to race my Chevelle at North Main, I discovered a serious traction problem now that the big block was installed in the car. My rear tires were 245/60/15 BF Goodrich T/A Radials that had seen better days. I needed some serious meats to get the power of the 402 to the pavement. Pro Trac made a really nice street/strip tire that had a super soft compound but everyone that I knew that had them told me that they wore out really quick, even if you weren't doing burnouts all the time! I was running an 8 inch wide rally wheel so I wanted to get the widest tire possible that would fit inside the stock wheel wells. Just when I thought that I was out of options, I spotted a Super Shops ad in the Sunday paper advertising a brand new T/A radial. BF Goodrich had just released their widest radial tire, a 305/50/15! Talk about some bodacious donuts, these things were massive! I needed a set of these pronto!

One of the cool things about the Super Shops was that you could get a trial fit of the tire you wanted on your car. I had to make sure that this steam roller sized tire would fit on the Chevelle without rubbing. As soon as I had a chance, I cruised down to the local Super Shops on 7th street. Although the sales guy was eager to sell me a set of tires, the labor guy was insistent that the tires were not going to fit. I was starting to doubt it myself after the tire was mounted because it was ballooning out so much from the edge of the rim. Much to my surprise those massive meats tucked up in the wheel wells perfectly. The view from behind was incredible! The tires were so wide it looked like the car had mini tubs installed. Now I was ready and Saturday was just a few days away!

Saturday morning and afternoon was spent prepping the car for that evenings activities. I have to admit, the Chevelle really looked good cleaned up. Medium blue metallic with argent silver all along the bottom rocker panels, 15x8 rally wheels in the rear with the wide trim rings, and 14x6 rally wheels up front. Just my luck, my mom had made lasagna for dinner, so I was definitely eating (and having seconds) and that made me get a late start on that evenings activities. The weather was perfect and I decided to hit the cruise circuit before heading out to North Main. The place was absolutely packed! There were a lot of people hanging out and even more cruising. It was bumper to bumper for miles, and I was inching along in the Chevelle, looking for a place to pull over and park. Although I preferred manual transmissions, my left leg was getting quite a workout in that traffic. When I put the big block in I also upgraded the clutch to a heavy duty three finger pressure plate that I had custom built at Clutch Masters. As I was depressing the clutch pedal it started to feel like something was grinding or rubbing. I was going to pull over to see what was up when suddenly there was a pop noise just as I was pushing the pedal, and my foot slammed to the floor. I was in neutral and managed to coast over to a driveway entrance. After a quick check over, it did not take me long to figure out what had happened. The pivot that held one end of the clutch counter shaft had snapped off in the block. I knew it would not be a quick fix, so off I went on foot to find a pay phone. While I was walking I was trying to figure out how I was going to get the Chevelle home. I stopped at the Carl's Jr to get a drink and spotted a guy a knew from the neighborhood, Zeke. Zeke was older but was a seasoned mechanic and street racer so I figured he might know what I could do. After explaining to him what had happened, he told me to just drive it home. I gave him a confused look and before I could ask how he explained it to me. "It's easy", Zeke said, "just start the motor with the car in first gear." "Let off the gas before you shift and it will go into the next gear." "What about red lights?" I asked. "Pop it in neutral, kill the motor, and then start all over again" Zeke replied. Armed with this information I was determined to give it a try. This was all new to me and I needed to concentrate, so I left the radio off and rolled up all the windows except for the drivers. With the engine off I put the transmission in first gear, waited for a break in traffic, then hit the starter. The Chevelle lurched forward as the starter was engaged, and as soon as the motor fired, I was off! Shifting was actually easy, letting off the gas just like Zeke said, the trans did go into the next gear. It took a little pressure and was a bit notchy, but it worked and got me home. The Chevelle would be down for the count for a few days until I was able to repair it. So much for racing at North Main! It would just have to wait.

The next day after work I had the front of the Chevelle up on car ramps and removed the counter shaft to gain access to the block pivot. I had a spare in my parts stash but I had to get the piece out that broke off in the block. Working in a very tight area, I used a small center punch and started tapping on the edge of the broken stud. I got lucky as it slowly started to back out of the hole, and before long the broken piece was removed. After I got everything re-assembled and adjusted, I decided to test the pedal action before I took the car off of the ramps. I enlisted the help of my sister to push on the clutch pedal while I watched from underneath. Right away I could see there was a bigger problem. My first clue was that my sister basically had to use both feet to depress the clutch pedal and the second clue was that when the pedal was pushed, the car's body would actually move on the frame. It's not like the body bushings were loose or worn out either. I couldn't believe that the pressure plate was so stiff that it was causing that amount of flex in the body. With that amount of pressure something had to give, and I realized that it was only a matter of time before something else broke. The logical choice was to switch out the pressure plate, so the Chevelle stayed up on the car ramps and I started the process of removing the transmission. I had become sort of an expert on the R&R procedure for the transmission. 1) Remove driveshaft. 2) Remove shifter handle. 3) Remove speedometer cable. 4) Remove four bolts retaining the transmission to the bellhousing and remove transmission. 5) Remove clutch fork spring and loosen fork adjusting rod. 6) Remove throw out bearing. 7) Remove bellhousing to gain access to the pressure plate, disc, and flywheel. Now that the Jean LaFoote pressure plate was removed, I had to decide what I was going to replace it with.

Everyone I knew ran 3 finger clutches. They were stiffer then a diaphragm clutch and held more pressure. When I first converted the car to a manual transmission I put in a diaphragm clutch. The pedal pressure was fairly light and it wasn't long before the disc started slipping. I needed a pressure plate with more clamping force so I upgraded to a Borg & Beck style, aka 3 finger, pressure plate. When I installed the big block I upgraded the clutch to a 12 inch unit, so I couldn't use my old setup as it was only 10-1/2 inches. My initial thought was to buy another 3 finger clutch with less pressure, probably a McCloud or Hays unit. I decided to head over to J & M Speed Center to see what they had. The owner, Phil, was working the counter when I got there and I started asking him about clutches. I told him about my clutch problem and he said he might have just what I was looking for. He went back into the warehouse and brought out a black and orange box that said Centerforce on it. Phil told me it was a new style of diaphragm clutch that used centrifugal weights to increase the clamping force. It was the best of both worlds, the clamping force of a 3 finger with the light pedal pressure of a diaphragm. Needless to say I was sold, so I bought a new Centerforce clutch kit to install in the Chevelle.

The new clutch went in without any problems and worked flawlessly. The pedal was easy to push and the action was smooth. Now the Chevelle was ready for North Main and I couldn't wait for the weekend. Before you could say "Bob's your uncle", it was Saturday evening. When I got to North Main it was filling up fast. Tonight was hot and you could already tell there was going to be a lot of racing action. Both spectators and racers parked on the shoulder of the street, parking lights on if you were looking for a race. Guys would walk up and down the line of cars checking out the competition, and several were checking out my Chevelle. I got more then a few questions about the rear tires and if the car had been mini-tubbed. Racing had already started and I was eager to find a race. Just then I spotted a guy I knew from high school, Jim, in his Camaro. You really couldn't miss his car with the polished tunnel ram sticking out of the hood and the whine of the Pete Jackson gear drive. I flagged him down and he pulled over. The first thing he said to me is "you gonna race that thing tonight or did you break something else?" "Only if you have the balls to race me first." I retorted. "Your on!" Jim said, and with that I fired up the Chevelle and followed him to the staging area. North Main was a total of 4 lanes, so with 2 lanes side by side it made it a little easier to race without worrying about oncoming traffic. Drag racing would run North to South and the "staging area" was nothing more then a line that someone had painted across the Southbound lanes. Soon we were lined up and waiting for the guy who was staging that night to signal us with his flashlight. I found out later that a lot of people thought that Jim was going to take me as his Camaro had a reputation for being really fast. We both came off the line hard and Jim's high reving small block got the jump on me. By the time I grabbed second gear I had caught up and third gear saw me pulling away from him. John Dahl had told me that the motor should handle 7500 rpm all day but I was shifting at 7000 and that big block was screaming! By the time I hit 4th I was a solid car length ahead and breaking away. The race was over before I knew it and I had won! Most of the racers would just slow down and do a u-turn in the street to head back, which is exactly what Jim did. I was sure he wanted a rematch but before I raced again I wanted to look my car over real quick. It was too dark out to do this on the side of North Main so I continued to drive up the street about a mile to the only business that was out there. It had a small parking lot with a light, just enough for me to check things out. As I was parked there looking over the car I could see all the cars in the distance and hear another race going down. Just then I saw at least half a dozen police cars speed right by me towards where the racing was happening. Another swath of cop cars were coming from the opposite direction, lights blazing. A bust was going down and it looked to me like a big one! I jumped in my car, left my lights off, and quickly headed down the street away from all the action.