PDA

View Full Version : New wheels and tires hit the bottom rear corner of the fender (would Tru-Turn help?)



DarkoNova
10-12-2012, 04:48 PM
Long story about the complications I've been having with finding wheels that would fit my car. The gist of it is basically I have stock control arms with AFX spindles and a Touring Classics (no longer in business apparently) C5 brake kit. Rear end was supposedly out of a 70's Nova but apparently it wasn't and it's wider than stock, so regular wheels won't fit. I bought a set of C5 wheels, all 4 are 18x9.5 with a +58 offset, or roughly 7.5" of backspacing.

I basically just bought a 3" adapter to bring it essentially to the same backspacing as the 18x8 (I figured since the new wheels have 7.5" of BS, a 3" adapter would bring it to 4.5"). When I got the wheel I mounted it up and it cleared everything just fine, but now with my old 245/40/18 on it, it hits the bottom rear corner of the fender. The wheels also stick out a bit. Clearly I measured wrong, but luckily I talked to Doug at Global West and he said he could turn the adapters down to whatever thickness I need.

I still have about an inch of clearance between the tire and the tie rod and an inch between the front of the frame and the tire. So going off of this site:

http://rimsntires.com/specs.jsp

It looks like I should have used a 2.5" adapter or even 2.25".

But is that my only problem? I don't get how more offset would only effect clearance toward the rear of the tire. Would getting the Tru-Turn setup help in anyway?

I haven't driven the car in a couple years and I'm sick of it being a huge paper weight. Help me get this thing back on the road, guys!

MrQuick
10-12-2012, 08:38 PM
We need a visual...having a hard time computing. The tire is close to the rear of the fender? When turning? With that shallow of a BS the tire/wheel is on a wider turning radius in relationship of the turning axis.

exwestracer
10-13-2012, 05:07 AM
So, the tire hits the rear lip of the fender and you're wondering why it doesn't also hit the front? Could be any number of reasons, most likely it's just the placement of the spindle in the wheel opening. Caster will sometimes cause clearance issues in only one direction as well. Quick is right about the cause. It's still a wide rim/tire combo. The spacer increased the scrub radius or arc that the tire turns in.

DarkoNova
10-13-2012, 01:35 PM
I took the lower control arms off and brought them to Global West to have them press in their bushings. When I took them off I noticed the ball joints were bad, but that will have to wait till next week. So I haven't put them on yet (I figure it'll be easier to install the ball joints off the car), so this is the best I can do:

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2012/10/101549-1.jpg

The circled area is where the tire hits.

There's a pretty big gap between the fender and door (looks to be a good 3/8"), so I think I can move the fender back a bit, but I'm not sure I can move it back that much...

I know I can take some caster out to get it to clear, but that seems like a terrible solution.