New scoots for the pony

I took advantage of Les Schwab's annual Spring tire sale and got some new tires for the new 16" wheels. There are a lot of tires out there and I ended up choosing the Toyo Proxes 4 in 215/55-16 for the front and 245/50-16 for the rear. The Proxes 4 is a V rated all-season high performance radial. I know there are much higher performance tires out there, but it's not as if I'm going to go out to the track tomorrow. This is a good tire at a good price and I'm happy with the purchase.



On a side by side comparison, you can see how much more aggressive the new wheel/tire combo looks. I originally really liked the look of the 14s and the "balloon" tires but seeing the new combo completely changed my mind. Seeing them on the car is amazing.





I got the new wheels mounted as my sister and her family showed up for dinner. I took the opportunity to take the car out the check out the new clutch and to give my brother-in-law, DZ, a ride around the block. DZ's a pretty tall guy but he seemed to fit in the passenger's seat fairly well. This was my first drive in the daylight and I only did a 5 mile loop on backroads. The car feels pretty good, but I need to adjust the clutch a little. I need to push the clutch pedal all the way to the floor for full disengagement so I think I need to take a little slack out of the cable. I think there is supposed to be 3/4" of free play in the pedal and there seems to be much more than that. Back up on jackstands!

That's the good part. The bad part is that the change in gearbox oil did not help the 3-2 downshift. I'm pretty sure the 2nd gear synchro is shot so I'll need to be gentle until I can fix it at some point.