You know how you live with a problem, and then when you figure out the answer you kick yourself for not seeing it sooner? At Good Guys a couple of weeks ago I was talking to a spectator about my '33 and I mentioned that it had always pulled to the right, and that my front tires were needing to be replaced after only 6,000 miles. A couple of minutes later a guy walked over, having overheard my statement about the tires and asked, "Have you tried swapping the tires side to side?" I told him that I had not, but that when I had it aligned I had taken it back after about a week, and the front end guy tweaked the caster a bit and it helped, but did not fix the pull so I had just lived with it. They never mentioned a possible tire problem. Well, this guy had worked a front end machine earlier in life, and he told me that if they adjusted alignment, took the car for a test drive and it pulled they immediately went back to the shop, swapped the front tires, drove it again and if the pull reversed they knew it was a tire problem, not a chassis problem. DUH!! Now THAT makes sense! I thanked him for that insight, and told him I would be switching the tires when I got back to the shop.

Sure enough, I swapped the tires and it was diving left! I called Coker, who have the only 145R15's in the world (I run the Firestone F560's), and while the tires don't carry any mileage warranty they guided me to a tire dealer who had a Hunter Road Force balancer/analyzer and suggested that I have my wheels checked too - turned out to be my old tire shop, not far away. I took the car by, paid them $20 to put my tires on the machine. The wheels were less than 0.012" out of round but the tires were terribly egg shaped with differences in sidewall stiffness. Now some of this is due to 6000 miles of constant turning, but it was pretty apparent that one was much worse than the other, and was likely bad from the mold - maybe a belt crooked or ??? Regardless they were trash, so I ordered another pair - the only other option was Michelin's at 2.5 times the price of the Firestones

Mounted the new tires yesterday, carried them to Tim's for a spin on the Road Force machine and they were very minimally out of balance, and the lateral forces and sidewall stiffness were single digit. Took it out for a spin down the highway, and it tracks straight and true, without a hint of pull for the first time in it's life! What a joy to drive, not having to keep constant pressure on the wheel! I almost feel like it has Cruise Control now! I wish I knew that guy's name who took time to share his knowledge at the show - I feel like I owe him a beer or two, at a minimum!!