Driving a 106" wheelbase A-body, with ladder bars, bias-ply slicks, and a spool out back, combined with pizza cutter 165/80 radials up front, down poorly maintained, uneven side roads is an interesting sensation. The rearend reacts to the undulations it encounters in the road, and transfers them to the front end with a lazy (usually) side to side motion. It's up to you as the driver to keep the front pointed where you want to go, as well as making corrections for the yaw supplied from the rear. In four miles I had determined, that last year's drag radials, while a disaster on the track, had much better street manners!
When I pulled into the Quicklube, it was determined I wouldn't clear the rack, so they motioned me around back. Now that the smallblock had some heat in it, it was happily idling at a rather annoying 1500. I went around back and shut it off. I could tell from the restored 70 Camaro on one rack, and the various other classics around in different stages that this was an enthusiast's garage, and sure enough I had help, and an audience fairly fast. As I walked around the car I noticed one of my screw on Wilwood dust caps was AWOL, not good! I don't run caps on my front Centerlines because I like showing off my wilwood aluminum hubs, now all I was showing off was my spindle end, nut, and wheel bearing! "Buddy, this thing's got a serious oil leak", the tech commented. I bent down expecting to see that my new canton oil filter adaptor had sprung a leak, but no...right out of the bottom of the tranny cover area...great, rear seal...this is not going in my favor right off the bat.