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Sweating      30 degrees celsious here, just finished work for the year (welding up truck trailers) Cleaning out the garage to get my plymouth project in.

Winter
We don't need no stinkin winter.

Like Rog says, sweatin, drinking beer, working on the Rod out under a large shady tree, and chasing bikini down at the beach.

I had 4 1/2" back spacing on a 8" wheel.
Rick

That sounds reasonable Rick, compared with some of the radical rear wheels  some guys have.
I guess the possibility of metal fatigue with the original parts some of us Rodders are forced to run is always a possibility that should be kept in mind.

Saturday coming home from a Car Show in Warner Robins, GA.  My left rear axle broke even with the bearing, which caused the the wheel depart the car.
Rick

One question Rick, what was your rear wheel offset ?

Normally the rear wheel bearing sits pretty much in the centre of the wheel, at least that is how the factory try to arrange it.

Many rodders fit deep dish extra wide rear wheels, "for the look".
And that can put a bending load in the outer end of the axle.
As the wheel turns, the axle flexes and eventually after a high road mileage it can start fatigue cracks between bearing and the wheel flange.

Not so bad on a light car such as a T bucket, but it can become a problem with a much more heavy vehicle that sees a lot of road miles.
The solution is to fit a full floater rear end.

I suspect the actual axle was probably o/k, they are not known to have a serious reliability problem. But the huge deep dish rear wheels so admired by most Hot Rodders, will force the axle to do something it was never designed to do.

Put it up on stands without any wheels or tires on it.
Run it up to 50 Mph+ and see what happens.
Try it again without the tailshaft.

No idea what it might be, but a few tests might narrow it down.
If something is shaking real bad under there, you might be able to see it.

If you have access to a roller dyno, you could also run it up to speed (at no load), and again maybe see what gets the shakes.

The ignition coil will work just fine without a capacitor.
In fact the newer electronic ignitions never use a capacitor.

What the capacitor does is reduce spark erosion of the contact points.
If it is all working properly, the rubbing block should wear away long before the points become badly burned away.

When the points close, the initial coil current is very low, and rapidly ramps  up. But the capacitor is fully charged as the points close, and discharges through the points as they close, causing a small spark.  The larger the capacitor value, the greater the contact closing spark becomes, (which is bad).

When the points open, the coil primary current causes a very high instantaneous back EMF, which tries to arc across the points as they open.  The capacitor slows down the instantaneous rate of voltage rise, reducing this arcing.  The larger the capacitor, the less arcing you get (which is good).

The value of the capacitor is a compromise value to give the longest  points life, and really depends on the characteristics of the ignition coil, and the rated coil voltage.  
For instance an older 6 volt system will require a different and larger capacitor to a more modern 12 volt system.

Electronic ignitions don't have this problem, because the switching devices are semiconductors that don't create sparking or arcing as they switch.

What value capacitor should you use ?
Cannot answer that, but the service manual for your car should list the correct coil and capacitor types that have been worked out by the original manufacturer.
Unless you have a severe points burning problem, the capacitor that is in there is probably fine.

If the arcing on points opening is severe enough, current will continue to flow through the arc, bleeding off stored magnetic energy.  This can indeed rob secondary spark energy, but the primary function of the capacitor is to reduce this very detrimental points arcing as much as possible.

I am not so sure really wide front wheels and tires would look any better than a protruding brake caliper.
Unfortunately the required lacing of spoked wheels sets definite limits on what can be done with width and offset.

Only solution I can think of right now might be to use two smaller calipers per wheel, maybe from a motorbike ?  Not a brilliant idea, I know, but it should be able to give you reasonable total piston area and caliper rigidity without sticking out as far.