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
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? 