Got a 71 scamp with a 8 3/4 rear end. After installing new rear quater panels, hotchkis leaf springs, hotchkis shocks, and hotchkis sway bar it seems my rear end is around .5 to .34 off toward the passenger side. Got a set of 17/245/40 wheels and tires now the passenger side rubs on the inner fender. I also have wilwood disc brakes all the way around. Did some measuring and it seems that the axle is more toward the passenger side for some reason. Any thought?
rear end off
- Thread starter coreyg
- Start date
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Not surprising. They were pretty sloppy back then.
Treblig
Well-Known Member
It not that hard to loosen the spring U bolt and force the rear end a little to one side or the other. The hole that's in the spring pad is larger than the leaf spring bolt (head). If that doesn't do it you can also remove the rear end and die grind the spring pad hole out to one side or the other.
Rear ends (from the factory) are seldom centered perfectly!!
treblig
Rear ends (from the factory) are seldom centered perfectly!!
treblig
Ok, I'll try pushing it to one side first, hopefully that does it so I don't have to open up the hole.
Treblig
Well-Known Member
After you loosen the spring U bolts it will still be very hard to move one way or the other but if you use a big hammer (against the spring pad area) you can force it over to one side.
Treblig
Treblig
If all you're doing is measuring the tire clearance you're including a lot of factors in the measurement besides just the rear axle. While it's not uncommon for the rear axle to be off center by up to a 1/2", it's also not uncommon for the wheel tub itself to be a different size from one side to the other. Even the frame rails can be off by a 1/4" from the factory. Before you go moving the rear axle around, you should measure the distance from the perch to the wheel mounting surface. If it's the same on both sides, it's not the axle itself that's off.
The driver side measure 5 9/16 from perch to hub surface, the passenger side is 9 3/4" from same point. All I know is there was probably 1" to 1 1/16" of clearance between the wheel and fender on the drivers side and about 3/8" on the passenger side.
Uh, 5-9/16" vs 9-3/4"???
Those numbers should be the same. Not even the factory screwed them up that bad, you're talking about a difference of over 4" unless that's a typo. For an A-body 8 3/4 with SBP axles the measurement should be 5-13/16" with from the outside of the perch to the wheel mounting surface, assuming it was dead on the factory specs. If your measurements are really that far off not only are the perches not even close to centered, but that's not even an A-body 8 3/4.
3/16 " shouldn't be a problem banging one spring outward
With bolts loose on that side with car jacked on frame.
With bolts loose on that side with car jacked on frame.
That makes a lot more sense! 3/16" would be much more typical. As others have suggested you may have some luck trying to shift the rear axle over a bit after loosening all the u-bolts.
Sounds like you may have lost some clearance in the wheel tubs as well, but again that's pretty typical. 245's are about as wide as most Darts/Scamps can go with the stock spring locations, it's not unusual to find all the inconsistencies in the construction of your car when you start to push the tolerances.
I have seen up to an inch difference side to side. The last car We built we welded the spring perches over to 1 side to have the same tire clearance to the frame rails. Even then the tires had different clearances from the outer lip. Kim
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