Yearone Rally’s 17 inch on 69 Valiant- help

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408STRKR

MrMopar
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Gents,

I have seen 4 A bodies with the 17 inch year one wheels installed. I purchased them for my 69 valiant.

Rears 17x9 275 40 17- fit good

Fronts the offset is not enough and the 225 45 17 tire is basically almost flush with fender.

Now how come I seen a barracuda on here with 245s and another hotrod magazine Valiant with these and same tire combo up front with no issues..

Thoughts?

Stock v8 frame, rms upper control arms and strut rods. Disc conversion spindles from drum.

How else can I bring wheel spacing inward?

Jay
 
Some disk brake packages change the track width. Most make it wider, although there used to be a couple that were slightly narrower. The wilwood kit that used to narrow it the most is no longer produced though.

Barracudas have a little more room up front for wider tires. Not great for tall tires, but they handle wider tires a little better. And with a good fender roll they’ll fit more. Most of the cars I’ve seen with year one rally’s sit high, that’s how they get around it. Same as jacked up the back and hanging the tires out. The backspace is just not great for the front of a BBP A-body. A 17x8 with a 225 is a waste of time IMHO, no point in that wide of a rim for that narrow of a tire.
 
I don't understand. What belongs to the Rally?
 
Some disk brake packages change the track width. Most make it wider, although there used to be a couple that were slightly narrower. The wilwood kit that used to narrow it the most is no longer produced though.

Barracudas have a little more room up front for wider tires. Not great for tall tires, but they handle wider tires a little better. And with a good fender roll they’ll fit more. Most of the cars I’ve seen with year one rally’s sit high, that’s how they get around it. Same as jacked up the back and hanging the tires out. The backspace is just not great for the front of a BBP A-body. A 17x8 with a 225 is a waste of time IMHO, no point in that wide of a rim for that narrow of a tire.
Son of a.... so basically my options are nothing except to jack up the front end?
 
Son of a.... so basically my options are nothing except to jack up the front end?

58D4A550-F60B-43C0-B14E-9AE6FB81BB18.png


Who’s car is this? How can I contact him? Steve Shannon?
 
View attachment 1715327556

Who’s car is this? How can I contact him? Steve Shannon?

Pictures can be deceiving. Especially heavily stylized pictures on the internet. That car sits level, and the back doesn't sit particularly low. Which means, the front isn't very low either.

Even just looking at that picture, you can tell the front wheels sit very far out in the fenders. Those tires also have a pretty short sidewall for 17's, so, that's not a very tall wheel. And you have no idea what was done to the fenders. With as photoshopped as that picture is, you don't really know if the fenders have been heavily rolled.

Take this picture for example- what size tires are those up front on this Valiant?
8453061-image copy.jpg


Well, they're 285/30/18's. On 18x10" rims. The rears are 305's on 19x10.5's. How is that possible?

8414132-image copy.jpg


That's how. The quarters were sectioned and pushed out with a port-a-power. The front fenders were heavily pushed and rolled too. Depending on the picture, it's hard to tell.

Plus, if I've learned anything from putting 275's and 295's on my Duster it's that people have a very different idea of what "rubbing" means. It's subjective to start with, and it also depends on a lot of things - ride height, body tolerances, how stiff the suspension is, what kind of road surfaces the car sees, etc.

If the goal is to run 17x8" Year One rally's up front with a 4.5" backspace, all I can say is you won't get much tire on there unless your car sits fairly high and you don't run much for tire width. But that's subjective as well, and I drive a car lowered a good 2" from stock. So my input has bias too.
 
Take the front wheel to a good wheel shop and ask if they can mill some off the mounting surface.
Specs on the other valiant are in this article:
1 Family, 3 Generations: This ’67 Valiant Keeps Improving! - Hot Rod Network
Mill the front wheel hub? Is that safe based on torque procedures and stress from weight etc?
That article I’ve read, I contacted the Geoff guy in it and he advised it’s probably the Ssbc brake conversion to disc which caused the positive offset for me. He advised to try an E body spindle as the Ssbc kit provides a caliper mounting spacer bracket that bolts to the drum brake spindle. He said that will save me 1/4 to 1/2 inch.
Now will the ssbc caliper bolt to an E or E body disc brake spindle?
 
Mill the front wheel hub? Is that safe based on torque procedures and stress from weight etc?
That article I’ve read, I contacted the Geoff guy in it and he advised it’s probably the Ssbc brake conversion to disc which caused the positive offset for me. He advised to try an E body spindle as the Ssbc kit provides a caliper mounting spacer bracket that bolts to the drum brake spindle. He said that will save me 1/4 to 1/2 inch.
Now will the ssbc caliper bolt to an E or E body disc brake spindle?

Milling the hub may be perfectly safe, but it depends entirely on how thick the mounting surface is. I’ve seen wheels you could take a 1/2” off, and I’ve seen wheels I wouldn’t take anything off of. It also depends on the material, a forged wheel can be thinner than a cast wheel, and even high quality cast wheel can be thinner than a cheap cast wheel.

I seriously doubt the E body spindles will do anything like what you’re suggesting. E-body disk spindles are basically the same as FMJ or 73+ disk spindles with regard to track width, which is much wider than the drum spindle track width. And they use a different wheel bearing than the drum spindles you have. E-body drum spindles I’d have to look more into, but I doubt you’ll save much, and the bearings are likely different. Even then, a caliper mounting spacer doesn’t change the track width, just the caliper clearance.
 
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Understand, what about machining the taper of the splindle back further so the brake rotor itself moves more negative?
Or the brake rotor hub?
 
See where this spacer is, is it possible the taper of the ends more positive than another style spindle which doesn’t use the caliper spacer? Looks like another spacer keeps the rotor from moving in further as well from the base of the spindle.

D6D1CDED-6FBF-431E-8AA1-38DF2178B283.png
 
Understand, what about machining the taper of the splindle back further so the brake rotor itself moves more negative?
Or the brake rotor hub?

Machining the spindle would move the rotor closer to the spindle, which would cause interference very quickly. The tapers are hardened as well, so that’s not a good option.

The brake rotor hub wouldn’t get you much, and you’d almost definitely need different lug studs with a shorter shank.

I would avoid doing any machine work on either of those spots.

See where this spacer is, is it possible the taper of the ends more positive than another style spindle which doesn’t use the caliper spacer? Looks like another spacer keeps the rotor from moving in further as well from the base of the spindle.

View attachment 1715327882

Ok, we have a terminology problem. That’s not a caliper spacer, that’s a bearing spacer. So yes, removing that would move the rotor closer to the spindle. But that spacer is there for a reason. If it’s there to keep the rotor from hitting the spindle, changing spindles probably won’t help, it just means that space is built into the other spindle.

If it’s there because of the distance between the bearing surfaces on the spindle you might benefit from a different spindle. But, the spindles you’re talking about don’t use the same wheel bearings. So, your brake kit may not be compatible with them anyway.
 
The bottom line for me is that those wheels just don’t have the right specs for use on the front of an A-body. Sure, some people have done it with some work arounds, but even then they’re pretty limited to what size tires they can run.

It’s just easier to find a set of wheels that actually fit right.
 
Looks great. Is that the 8 inch wide rallye with 4.25 backspace in front? Are the spindles 73-76 factory a body? What size tire? Sorry for all the questions but looking to do the same on my 69 Barracuda. Glad it worked for you.
Yes 8 inch and 4.25, 225 45 17 tire and they are 69 drum spindles converted to ssbc disc. They will fit better on barracuda.
 
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