Dart wheel clearance issue

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gkmopar

gkmopar

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I have a 68 Dart with 10" drum brakes. When I removed the front wheel to do some brake work there were wheel spacers on the front wheels. When I put the wheel back on without the spacer the upper control arm lightly rubs the wheel. I verified it has the correct 14 x 5.5 wheels. Can caster/camber cause this issue? How close is this supposed to be?

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They are always real close. Perhaps the wheels are not the exact ones that belong with the car? That's all I can think of. The wheels have just a hair too much backspacing. You can grind a little off the a-arm. Spacers won't really hurt anything either.
 
Too much backspace. 14 x 4.5 will probably fit. It is possible this was a 13" rim car originally? No cotter pin in upper ball joint?
 
too much backspace.

Camber will definitely effect that interference though, caster might a little but it would be a small difference. The problem is that with radials you want negative camber (wheel tipped in at the top), so you wouldn't want to run positive camber to clear the rims. Do you know what your current alignment settings are?
 
Its a GTS and has 14 x 5.5 wheels which is correct. I think the oem bias ply tires may have had some positive camber but the radials need an little negative camber. I don't know the alignment specs but it looks like slight negative camber which would put the rim closer to the control arm.
 
The factory spec for bias-ply tires is 0° to +3/4° camber. With radials, you want around 1° negative camber, which is going to make your situation slightly worse (maybe). I'd just leave the spacers in there, assuming they are fairly thin (1/8"?).
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Good info. Thanks for the help!
 
69_340_GTS said:
The factory spec for bias-ply tires is 0° to +3/4° camber. With radials, you want around 1° negative camber, which is going to make your situation slightly worse (maybe). I'd just leave the spacers in there, assuming they are fairly thin (1/8"?).
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-1* of camber is fairly aggressive for the street, especially if the radials you're talking about are the BFG T/A's that most folks run.

For a street car with 15's and BFG's I'd set up more like -.5* camber. -1* camber is pretty much the most you can run without seeing camber wear on the tires. It's what I run, but I also have 18" rims and more modern tire compounds and design.
 
72bluNblu said:
-1* of camber is fairly aggressive for the street, especially if the radials you're talking about are the BFG T/A's that most folks run.

For a street car with 15's and BFG's I'd set up more like -.5* camber. -1* camber is pretty much the most you can run without seeing camber wear on the tires. It's what I run, but I also have 18" rims and more modern tire compounds and design.
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Curious. I have a GTS and I'm running a 15x6 steel wheel on the front. I'm also running BFGs. My upper control arm is nowhere close to the wheel.
 
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