65 chevelle tire rub...sway bar?

Guys,
Need some help here please! I have a 65 chevelle with a stock front suspension with a 383 sbc. I have installed 2" cpp drop spindles, and love the stance. The problem now is, when I turn, the tires rub the top outside edge of the fenderwell. The car is originally a 6 cyl. car, so I think the springs might be too soft? I plan on taking the wheel offset in about 1" when i put the new wheels on this year, but im wondering where i should start before i do that. Will a 1 3/8" swaybar help along with gas shocks? Do i have to buy different springs? If so, how do i get the right stiffness? Any suggestions?


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Smaller tires.

Dude, you LOWERED the car, your tires now hit. This is one of the lessons in modifying a car, one modification NEVER stops there.

Narrower tires may be needed, less offset rim may be needed. You may even be able to solve the problem with a wheel alignment adding more neg camber bringing in the tops of the wheels.

I have a simlar car, a 65 Buick Gran Sport (both cars are "A" bodies and share MANY components) and I have 205 15 tires on 72 Buick 7" wide "Roadwheels". The car is slightly lowered and the tires hit just a little bit. I changed the inner fender bolts from the regular bolt to a "button head" allen which has a rounded top. The tires barely hit them and when they do it just "rubs" them.

Brian

The main problem is body roll. It really only does it in the corners, which is why I asked about the sway bar.

Your front end is also not designed to produce negative camber on corners like a later front end. So when the tire rebounds up it stays or even produces positive camber. So bringing in the top giving it some negative camber may make all the difference. A little bigger sway bar and some urethane bushings can help as well sure, but if you haven't aligned the front you have no idea where you are.

Brian

Lets identify the problem....
You lowered the car and the tires are rubbing....

proposed Solution A, "Stiffer sway bar".... it will help reduce the times it may hit the fender but it is a band aid and will not completely rectify the problem.

proposed Solution B, Changing alignment to gain negative camber. bad idea first off it is an A body which has one of the crapiest handling front suspensions that GM has made. If that car is aligned and camber set properly... when one side of the suspension compresses the car will actually go into positive camber which is one thing that is agrivating the problem. If you put a "taller height" drop spindle... this would have cured that issue and actually put the car into a negative camber gain. If you just used a stock replacment drop spindle which is the same height as your factory spindle you still have the same problem.

Answer....to keep the tires from rubbing and damaging the tires you simply need to get them in the inner fender well. You are going to do that by changing the offset of the wheels. By adding a taller height spindle it will help the handling tremendously and will HELP eliminate this problem... adding a sway bar will also help in the handling aspct .... but in a nut shell... you still need to change the offset of the wheels......

But my original point is he has no idea what the camber is!! How on earth are we to start changing parts when we don't even know what the front end is at right now? We have changed spindles, aftermarket MODIFIED from original design spindles and we have no idea what the camber is!

You are probably right in that the narrower tire, rim and/or a rim with less offset is probably the best way to go. But we don't even know the rims and tires are on the car!

Brian

Brian

Good one Brian. Now all we need is the OP to let us know what wheel and tire combo he is running and rubbing.


Cole

Very good discussion guys....here is what I have right now - 235/60 -14" and my winter goal is to have 225/55 -17" in by spring. Im already figuring on adding about 1/2" to 1" of backspace to my new wheels since I think it wont kill the look of the stance. I can also add a heavier sway bar without breaking the bank. The camber looks dead straight up and down right now, but I have to admit that I have not had it professionally aligned yet. I did buy a percy's wheelright, so I can get the offset/ dia of my wheel tire combo correct, but this rub thing has kinda surprised me.

Most disc Brake spindles add about 1" per to the width also. Arrrrg. Probably where your rub came from.

My experience has been those are WAY too big of tire and no amount of wheel offset is going to work. There isn't room on the inside if you move them in. My 215/15 65's hit on both the frame behind the wheel on the inside to hitting the fender on the outside. I don't see how you could put a wider tire on the car, there just isn't room. Not without making more room some how of course.

I mistakenly said I had 205s on my my car, they are 215s.

I believe you simply have too big of tires. You need to take a look at that, the wheel offset and the alignment. There is no easy answer to what you have going on other than the tires are too big, that is an easy start.

Brian

"But my original point is he has no idea what the camber is!! " obviously i dont care about YOUR original point. I was responding to what the original poster had posted and responded accordingly... Nice usage of the exclamation point btw

"How on earth are we to start changing parts when we don't even know what the front end is at right now?" Maybe I was not concise enough in my original response and I apologize... I am simply suggesting he not worry about adding any additional parts until he gets his tires inboard of his fenderlips. ( hence: "but in a nut shell... you still need to change the offset of the wheels......")

"We have changed spindles, aftermarket MODIFIED from original design spindles and we have no idea what the camber is! " Again... nice execution of the exclamation point. I assume that your literary instructors had no tolerance for mundane essays. this is exactly why I left the response I did under proposed solution B. I did not feel the need to possibly drag the original poster through the mud if he did not know what kind of spindle he put on the car... instead I listed the effects of each type of common spindle replacement.

"You are probably right in that the narrower tire, rim and/or a rim with less offset is probably the best way to go. But we don't even know the rims and tires are on the car!" Again, I commend you on punctuation usage

I would be confident that if the forum board was designed to be polarized to your responses then behind each one of your responses it would lock the thread down so that nobody else could post behind you. However, being that it is not, I may... at times... feel the need to post MY opinion

Isn't that what I did? I expanded on my thoughts and your thoughts. Post away just like I do.

Brian

Ingliv.... by the way here is a picture of our shop 66 Chevelle that I drove out to Bonneville and Pleasanton 2 years ago. In the front we are running 275/40/18. That is with stock inner fenderwells and rolled fender lips.

Tony, that thing looks sweeeeeet! But I have to imagine (being from ride tech) that the front of your ride is bagged, and actually rides higher than that normally? If not, how in the hell did you get those meats under the front without rub? Also, all you other guys helping me out....did you look at my plan for 17"'s....does it seem doable?

Hey Ssedan64....I love the stance on yours....is it lowered as well? Looks like a very similar tire to what I have now?