[gwstang]

On my son's '56 chevy pickup that we restored, for some reason the pass. side rear tire now has a whitewall where there was none before (only white letters on chrome rim). The rear fender came in contact with the sidewall and stripped off an 1/2 inch wide piece all the way around! It has never done this before and has quite a few miles on it since restored. I did have a guy rebuild the rear gears a few years ago and everything has been fine. I had him lift up on the body some to see if it was shifting over and it was not. Both rear shocks are fairly new and look even sitting. Both leaf springs are sitting the same. Nothing heavy been in the rear. I did ask him if he did some burnouts or something and he said no...it's his truck so if he does it's okay. I asked him if he had run off the edge of the road and maybe it dipped down hard...he said no. I am out of questions to ask him...can ya'll help????

[johnsongrass1]

Curb rash?

[66GMC]

I don't know if a 56 Chevy uses a panhard bar or not. I doubt it, as I think it was a coil-spring thing.

This panhard bar (if equipped) attaches to the top of the diff using a fairly large diameter (5/8"?) stud, and a similarly large bolt to a bracket on the frame. There is a rubber bushing in each end of the bar.

Here is a picture of my 66 GMC frame. The panhard bar is the round yellow bar attached to the rear diff.

If so equipped, and yours has broken loose (bushing disintegrated?) it would allow a fair amount of side-to-side rear axle travel.

[gwstang]

Nope, no curb interference. I will check on the panhard bar...I don't think it has one.

[Henry Highrise]

I thought that he said it had leaf springs...read the first post...thats the way I understood it anyway.

[DOUBLEDICK]

If he does not have the after market sway bars I would suspect a high speed turn as the body roll is extreme on these trucks.I drove a 59 apache daily from 1976 to 1989 without sway bars but most of my tire problems were from the inside of the tire rubbing the wheel well. but I ran a narrow 7.50x16 truck tire.I run 31x10.5 15s on the 58 Apache I drive now and had a mild rubbing issue in corners till I installed the sway bars front and rear.It handles better than my 97 Chevy now and no rubbing issues for 2 years.

[home brew]

It is possible that he kicked up something that caught in the wheel well and rubbed the tire and then dropped out. Chances are that if had happened to me when I was young the damage would have been from rubbing a curb real hard or doing something else stupid. I wouldn't have owned up to it either or I wouldn't have noticed.