Rear Tire Rub
 

I have a 68 Camaro not mini-tubbed. Wheels and tires were purchased from a supporting vendor here. On the back I have Rushforth Superspokes 18 x 9 w/275/40's and the fender lip is rubbing the outer edge of the tire. I have ground the edge of the fender lip to try and gain some room but still rubbing. I'm cautious of any further use of the grinder for fear of going through the weld between the outer and inner fender. What are my options here?
Rear suspension is Hotchkis TVSS.
Do i need to just go to a narrower tire? I hate to cause the stance is spot on with the 275 in the back.
Would a stiffer shock/spring help?
Can the rear be raised 1/4-1/2" easily?
I don't think i need much judging by the marks on the tire from where the fender lip has hit.
Thanks for any insight and suggestions.

Is only 1 side rubbing?

No both sides are. The driver side little more though.

Do you have rubber/ poly leaf pads? I HAD energy suspension leaf pads in the rear of my 68 camaro. My fender lips are rolled. With everything in the rear tightened properly my rear end could move around enough to rub on both sides from time to time. I went to a local truck shop that does lifts and builds leafs springs. They sold me metal spacers that were drilled in the middle with new leaf bolts. I took the bolts out of me DSE leafs and added the new spacers and bolts. I cut the bolts to length bolted everything back together and haven't had a problem since.

Thanks for the reply Jason, I will check into this. I think if i can get some more room between the tire and fender lip for when i hit a bump I'll be fine.

john im in the same boat.my front and back both rub.i wanted my car low and dont have air ride so its the price i must pay.:rolleyes:

What its your backspacing? I might have missed it.

Jason I'll have to look it up but i'm thinking 5-1/2" or 5-3/4".
I have about 1/2"-5/8" between frame rail and inner sidewall of tire.

I know every car is different, but on my 68 with 5.5 bs on a 9" rim I only have about.25" from the inner edge of the tire to the inner wheel house. I'm sure I could get away with 5.25 bs. With the rolled fender lips I have 11.75" from my inner wheel house to the lip at 12 o'clock on the drivers side and 12" on the passenger side.

Find out what your BS is. If you are running a 5.5 or 5.75 your issues should be on the inside towards the frame. Normally a 5.25" BS on a 9" wheels is pretty close to spot on for a factory length rear on a 68 Camaro. Are you running a factory length rear?

Jason, if I remember right, you have a narrowed rear end. That changes everything.

Rear end is stock width.
I'll have to check the backspacing when I get home.

You are correct. I do have a narrowed rear, BUT until I sell my Budnik's and you help me spend some money I am running wheel adapters. My budnik's were spec'd for my stock rear. The adapters are the same width as the amount I narrowed the rear.

after taking mine out for a nice drive this weekend ill say my car is dangerous.car is to low and when you hit bumps at speed its scary.i cant afford air right now so im gonna just raise it up and go with it for now.my back tire hit so hard saturday it bent my wheelwell lip out:wow: .you should of seen the looks i was getting rolling it back into shape with a broom handle/lol
i can say its my own fault cause when i ordered my wheels i told them i dont care about rubbing i just want a low and slow cruiser.i have rushforth 18s and stock suspension.low profile nittos .im going to start a thread about it as to not steer away from the op

I measured backspacing last night and if I measured correctly they are 5-1/2".
Any suggestions on how to raise the rear up? Judging by the scars on the tires from rubbing if I can get 1/2" of clearance i'll be fine. The springs are mounted under the axle. I mount a 1/2" lowering block under the spring will this give me the clearance I need or do I need to get longer shackles made?

OK i need some suggestions on what to do next. I just pulled the rear wheels off and re-confirmed backspacing in 5.5". Current tires, 275/40 KDW2are rubbing on inner fenders and outer fenders are cutting the outside edge. Wheels are 9" width. Is my backspacing correct? are my tires too wide? I let the "expert" spec the rims, he told me what tires to order. Will going to a 255/40 tire solve my problem? The 255 is about 3/4" shorter than the 275.
I just want to resolve this so i can drive without fear of cutting a tire.
This wasn't a cheap investment and i went this route of letting someone tell me what order to avoid this issue and I'm no better after $3500 and 3-months of waiting.
John

If it's rubbing on the inside AND outside, your back spacing is fine. Your problem is a ride height that's to low or you have excess movement from side to side.

That's reassuring. Raising the car was my original thought and the only decent suggestion I had was longer spring shackles in the back. Is the ratio the same 1" longer shackle gives me a 1" in height? Hotchkis couldn't answer that for me. We all want to lower our cars not raise them up!
This why I was looking into a narrower tire. The 255 is .7" narrower and .7" shorter so I figured this would give me what I needed but was looking for confirmation.
Question for you Todd on how your wheels/tires are balanced do you have weights on the rims? I read something aboutn a bag of pellets that are put in the tire before mounting that are dispersed by the force where needed by the tire rotation.
Your car is killer by the way.
No substitute for Cubic Inches!!!

Hey John, I'm not even close to a leaf spring expert. However, if you increase your shackle lengthe by an inch, the angle will directly effect the ride height. 45 degrees should gain you approx. half an inch, etc.

If you are rubbing the inner wheel house above the frame and the quarter panel lip, you need to fix your side to side movement. If you are rubbing your inner wheelhouse on the quarter panel side, you are very low in ride height.

Post some pics of how low the car is. See if you can get a front and rear clearance pic also. My car sits pretty low and since I got rid of the energy suspension leaf pads I have not had any rubbing problems. I might have missed it, but are running rubber/poly leaf pads? If so they need to go.

Here is a pic of my car with 275's.

Leaf pads are poly/rubber
Here are some pics, don't know if they say a 1000 words or not......
http://s563.photobucket.com/albums/s...3DDSC01389.jpg
http://s563.photobucket.com/albums/s...3DDSC01385.jpg
http://s563.photobucket.com/albums/s...3DDSC01388.jpg
http://s563.photobucket.com/albums/s...3DDSC01386.jpg
http://s563.photobucket.com/albums/s...3DDSC01387.jpg

Your car looks great. I highly recommend getting rid of your leaf pads before trying to raise the car. DSE told me to get rid of my leaf pads and like I said I've had no rubbing since. I found a local place that does truck lifts. I purchased a 1/4 inch plate that was about the same length as my leaf pad was and I purchased New leaf bolts. I took the bolt out of my leafs added the plate and new bolt, trimmed the new bolt to length and have been good to go since.

Even if you end up having to raise the car up a bit you will notice a slight performance gain getting rid of the rubber pads. In stead of seeing deflection in the rubber the suspension will be able to do its job.

Thanks for the compliment Jason.
If i understand you corectly you ditched the pad and added a 1/4" plate, the size of pad, to your springs. In essence adding another leaf?
If i go thicker am I adding more space? Say 1/2" I assume this will change the ride minimally?

That's a serious tire rub. Car looks great. :thumbsup: Is that a 26" tire?

Tire Rack website says 26.7" for a 275/40 and 255/40 is 26"
Thanks for the compliment!

I thought the sidewall looked to fat. It should be a 26" or smaller tire. A 275/35/18 would've been a better choice at 25.6" It will gain you .5" of bump clearance. Your rub looks like it's under suspension compression?
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....=yes&tab=Specs

Todd yes it rubs under compression.
I have 235/40 in the front. Just worried how it would look with 235/40 in front and 275/35 in back. They are almost the same height.
Also will it make the rear appear to sit lower than front?
I would say car is level as it sits now.

Mine is a 275/40/18 also. They are 26.7 tall. I think the 275/35/18's look great on the 69's, but the 67/8's need a little extra help filling the round wheel well. The 275/40's are what DSE recommended for the Budniks in the picture and Driverz Inc recommended the same for my new wheels.

I'm assuming that your rear has a standard multi leaf perch. If you measure the energy suspension leaf pad before install they are 7/16's top and bottom. If you then measure how thick the leaf spring is and measure the gap from your shock plate to top of the leaf perch you will find that the leaf is only about 3/16's skinnier. So you are using 7/8" of poly to take up a gap that is only 3/16's. I used the 1/4' plate because I wanted to be sure I had enough thickness on the leaf to get a tight pinch in the perch. It is also much much easier to center the rear without the poly pads in there.

As far as ride height goes if you add the plate to the bottom of the leaf you will have the car raised as high as possible without messing with the shackles. If you put it on the top of the leaf the car will be 1/4" lower that max height.

I have a couple extra plates in my garage. I'll go take a couple pics and post back in a few.

Then you have no choice but to raise the car until the rub goes away. The plates would work perfect for that, you will pickup some vibration with a solid mount.

Here are some pics. It's been about a year since I swapped out the leaf pads. I forgot I used one 1/4" and one 1/8" plate. The picture is of the two extra 1/8" plates I had.

Remember that the top leaf pad that you are currently running is acting like a lowering block. If you end up running plates and put them under the leaf it will raise the car equal to whatever the compressed thickness of the leaf pad is.

Like Todd said getting rid of the leaf pads may create some vibrations. I didn't notice anything when I made the swap, but between my cam and exhaust it may just be covered up.

If you want you can have the extra plates that are in the picture. I'm pretty sure they won't be thick enough to get the job done, but it will give you something to show a local spring place what you want. I had about $35 into the plates and bolts for both sides. If you can't find anything local to you let me know and I could pick them up for you at the place I got mine if this is a direction you decide to go.

I don't see how adding shims under the leaf spring will raise the car? Putting them above the spring would definitely lower it. Sounds like he will need to reduce the thickness above the spring and if that doesn't work, fet a slightly longer shackle.

The energy suspension leafs pads that he has are 7/16" thick above the leaf and below the leaf. I'm not sure what the compressed thickness is, but if you do away with the 7/16" pad that is currently above the leaf you will be raising the car whatever that compressed thickness is.

Sorry no cad software on my home laptop. I hope this makes sense. Don't make fun of paint skills.

Thanks for the pics and offer Jason. I'll give that a shot. What are the dimensions of your plates? A friend of mine is a welder and i can have him cut me the plates. I'm going to go w/(2) 1/4" plates and see how it goes.

My plates are 5 x 2.5 with the holes centered.

Thanks Jason.
Something to work on next weekend!:thumbsup:

Ok so I pulled the rear springs out last night. Thankfull for having plenty of jackstands and a lift. As well as my daughter bagging all the nuts and bolt and labelling as they came off the car! Both made this so much easier. Also a couple Miller Lites afterwards to reward myself for injuries also this was a 1st!
I am going to replace the the rubber leaf pads with steel plates and going with longer spring shackles in the back. I want to try and do this just once!
I have tried talking to Hotchkis to see what their reccomendation was for how long the shackle should be to get the 3/4" clearance I'm looking for but no response. I read on afco's website that increasing the shackle length will softenthe spring so I don't know if I need compensate for this or not or if swapping the rubber spring pads will compensate for this.
Can anyone out there (David Pozzi?) give me a reccomendation on shackle length? The current ones are 3-1/2".
Thanks for the help :thumbsup:

Just remember you are probably going to need a longer leaf bolt to go through the center of the leaf and the new plate. You don't want to just throw that new plate under the leaf. If you do I'm guessing that the locator won't be long enough to make it into the hole on the shock plate.

Thanks Jason.
Have them on my list.

Let us know how it works out, and pic some pics of the finish product. Sorry I'm no help on the shackle question.

Alright the new plates and shackles are primed and painted ready for install.
I've got the plates installed on the bottom of the leaf springs with the longer bolts. My concern is with removing the poly pads the head of the bolt will hit the bracket that is welded to the axle. Do i need to use the top pad and just remove the bottom? or what?