[kzooman83]

I am having a problem with some slight rubbing of the front tires on my '75 Duster against the front and rear edge of the wheel arch at the very bottom of the fender during cornering. The car is a '75 Duster with a '77 400 big block; the front wheel tire combo is: 15x7" Cragar series 342 black "D-window" wheels with 4.25" backspace, Firehawk Indy 500 white letter tires size 215/65/r15. This is the smallest size offered in the firehawk indy 500 with white lettering and the largest backspace offered on these particular rims, and it still rubs slightly.

I want the fronts and rears to match; short of buying a whole new set of wheels/tires, is there anything I can do to address the rubbing?

 

[Bob Lincoln]

I'm going to guess that the 7" wide rim is too big for the wheelwell. Options are to cut the wheelwell or go to a 6.5" rim.

 

[kzooman83]

That's what I was hoping to find, but the smallest size Cragar offers these wheels in is a 15x7". I did find that U.S. Wheel carries the same style wheel and offers a 15x7" with 4.50" backspacing vs the 4.25" that I am running right now. I know it is only 1/4" difference in placement of the tire vs fender, but the rubbing is very minor, so I am wondering if this might solve the problem. Any thoughts? Thanks for the reply!

 

[Bob Lincoln]

Maybe bite the bullet and go with the 15 x 7 on the rears only, narrower in the front. It will look and handle better.

 

[TWX]

Some have "rolled" the wheel opening with tools. Not sure if that would help or not but it may be an option.

 

[valiant67]

You can also likely gain some clearance by raising the front end by cranking up the torsion bar adjusters. That may change the way the car handles and obviously the stance it has so it may not be a viable option.

 

[covertopps]

I think the obvious part is the 15 inch wheels. The cars were desined for 14 inch wheels.

 

[dana44]

There is kind of a two part solution without cutting the rims and making them smaller. First is to determine if the hitting location is due to the suspension collapsing in the turn, second is whether or not it would matter if the edge of the fender itself can be moved out of the way without harming the appearance. Torsion bar ride height is a slight solution, it may actually be the rubber bumpers collapsing a little too much and allowing it to happen, so a slight experiment to determine is it the upper one or the lower one causing the rubbing. They do make, or you can make your own aluminum bumper spacer to slip between the bumper and the component it bolts to, start with quarter inch. Make sure the plate you use is the full size as the bumper so it doesn't just break the bumper off. This would help prevent the suspension from collapsing too much in the corner, which may give you another small amount of clearance to the fender rubs.