Well my first ride with all of my new Salt Flat Special Wheels turned from a Triumphal parade to a train wreck. My '65 Barracuda has big bolt pattern front discs and an 8-3/4 rear axle with Moser resplined B body axles. I went from 5 inch wide 14" wheels to 7 inch wide Salt Flat Special wheels that have 3.75" Back spacing and a -5mm offset. The tires are 205/60-15 front and 225/60-15 rears. The fronts bolted up perfectly with no rubbing lock to lock. The rears however just barely fit in the fenders with 1/8" clearance. It's ok in a straight line but the moment I start to turn the slack in the spring bushings lets the body shift enough to start rubbing the tire sidewalls hard. My question is this, should I try to roll the fenders a bit with a broom handle and maybe replace the leaf spring bushings with polys or should I just bite the bullet and go to a 205/65-15 tire which will give me about 1/2" total clearance? Just how much side clearance do you have to have to avoid rubbing in hard turns? I'll bet these would have worked perfectly on a '67 or later Wide A body. Help guys, I've waited 12 years to put some nice wheels on my ride and now I can't drive it

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"Former Owner" of '65 Barracuda, 225, Auto, MP 2bbl intake, MP cam, Dutra Duals. Presently Moparless.

Hmmm, that is unfortunate.

I would say that 3.75" backspace is not really enough on a 7" rim. 4.25"-4.5" backspace is close to centered in the well on stock axles, and the Moser bigbolt axles sit about 3/8" further out per side than the stockers, so you really want more like 4.5"-4.75" or so.

With rubber bushings you need around 1/2" clearance, and you can get away with 1/4" or less (depending on how hard you like to corner) with poly bushings so those will help. I'd say try the poly and lip roll and you should be OK with the 225 tires.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Thanks Lou, I'm going to try a gentle lip rolling tonight. I'm a little hesitant because I don't want to destroy my pain job. Any tips like starting with a small dowel and working up in size. If I can get another 1/4 to 3/8" at the fender maybe the poly bushings will give me the rest.
I'm posting some more wheel shots in my gallery here>
http://number6.homelinux.net:8080/gallery/album25

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"Former Owner" of '65 Barracuda, 225, Auto, MP 2bbl intake, MP cam, Dutra Duals. Presently Moparless.

When I have rolled fender lips, I usually used a hack saw to cut the lips from innner fender to outer fender. About one cut each inch. Then I used a standard body hammer to flaten them out, using the palm of my hand as the dolly. If you have chrome trim, you can cut them with a tin snips, mold them to match the rolled lip and use rivets to hold them in place.

Well I stepped back and thought about it and decide NOT to roll the fender lips. It wasn't really rubbing the lips. It was rubbing the side of the wheel well and besides the fenders look too good hack up. I've waited this long I figure another week or two to get it right won't matter. So I tried an experiment. I moved the new front wheels with 205/60-15s to the rear and put my old 14" wheels back on the front. No Rubbing So I'm going to order up another pair of the 205's and sell or trade off the 225/60s. I can tell you this. If you have a narrow A Body (63-66) with an 8-3/4 rear end and Moser axles you need 4-1/4" backspace on a 7" wide 15" wheel to avoid rubbing with 225/60 tires. Those wheels also had a negative 5mm offset. Some with 4" backspace and no offset would likely work too. Anybody in the Atlanta area need some really nice Kumho KH11 tires with about 1/4 mile on them and no damage for $30 each?

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"Former Owner" of '65 Barracuda, 225, Auto, MP 2bbl intake, MP cam, Dutra Duals. Presently Moparless.