Wheel, Strut ?

[rcf925]

I've been finishing up suspension and brakes on my 68 and now it's onto wheels. How close can rim of wheel get to front strut and still fit a tire without the bulge of tire hitting strut. Right now I have 15" steel rims that when mounted on front are about 1/4" away from strut. Is that enough room. I have no tires yet so also what would be a good size tire to fit on 15's   I have Bilstein coil overs all the way around and the back is also close but mostly to adjusting nut on shocks which I can move up or down

[Hans]

If the rim is 1/4" from the strut, no tire will clear. Even a 1/4" of tire clearance is pushing it if you do any hard cornering.

[bento]

It’ll be close, but might be possible depending on the model  and size of tire you choose.

 

I just did a quick check with a straight edge and tried to measure from the broadest part of a 195/50r15 S-Drive to the outer lip of my wheels, and it’s pretty close to that 1/4" you’re working with on a 15x7" wheel. I say "tried" because my measurement wasn’t super-accurate due to the car being up on a 4 post lift and a little awkward, but should give you a ballpark idea.

 

Thin spacers aren’t a terrible thing. I’d mount up one of the tires you want to use, and see whether it clears. Maybe use washers stacked up to find the thickness required. I was able to run a 1/4" spacer with my wheels on stock studs with enough thread engagement to be safe, but you want something like 1.5x the diameter of the stud for safe engagement. I believe this was i turns, but hopefully someone will keep me honest.

[rcf925]

My wheels I'm trying to use are 15x6   I'm not absolutely married to them so I'm open to other options. I have a set of BBS 13" off an E21 but backspacing is 4" and the wheel sticks out past the body by about an 1". So I'm not using those. I've read every wheel and tire thread for these cars and still haven't come up with a solution. They say 4.5" is optimum backspacing for these cars and I can't find any wheels with that. I even bought a set of rims off ebay that were 15x7 25mm offset , Said they would fit an 02 and they stuck out past body by also 1" or so. I sent them back. I wanna keep complete wheel under car. I didn't think it would be so hard to get the right combo and pretty much every pic I see wheels are out past the body

[TobyB]

There is no way to answer your question without tires. 

 

If you stretch a 165 tire onto that rim, yeah, it'll fit.  245's, no way.

 

Almost anything in- between is a 'maybe'.

 

You should have no problem at all keeping a 6" rim well under the fenders, with a 195-55-15.  But as you've noticed,

alignment is not trivial.

 

I'd recommend, if you like the rims well enough, find a tire you like, get one mounted up, and then see how much

spacer you need.  If you can get 1/4" or more between the sidewall and the strut tube with, say, a 10 mm spacer,

just do that for the time being, and work on other things. 

You can make up a test spacer with a stack of washers....

Then when you have a dimension, order 2 quality ones and some longer lug bolts.

 If it eventually bothers you, you can take your existing rim dimensions, add

the spacer, and go shopping again.

Or just run that way.  It'll work fine.

Now, if you end up with over 15mm, maybe new wheels beckon...

 

hth

 

t

 

[rcf925]

2 hours ago, TobyB said:

There is no way to answer your question without tires. 

 

If you stretch a 165 tire onto that rim, yeah, it'll fit.  245's, no way.

 

Almost anything in- between is a 'maybe'.

 

You should have no problem at all keeping a 6" rim well under the fenders, with a 195-55-15.  But as you've noticed,

alignment is not trivial.

 

I'd recommend, if you like the rims well enough, find a tire you like, get one mounted up, and then see how much

spacer you need.  If you can get 1/4" or more between the sidewall and the strut tube with, say, a 10 mm spacer,

just do that for the time being, and work on other things. 

You can make up a test spacer with a stack of washers....

Then when you have a dimension, order 2 quality ones and some longer lug bolts.

 If it eventually bothers you, you can take your existing rim dimensions, add

the spacer, and go shopping again.

Or just run that way.  It'll work fine.

Now, if you end up with over 15mm, maybe new wheels beckon...

 

hth

 

t

 

 

 What I found out is the model  year 68 has  slightly narrower fenders, Thats what I was told and I tend to believe it cause other wheels people say fit, Don't on my car. What I ended up using were my 3 series sport BBS wheels that are 13x6 and I put 175/70/13 on them and they work. There just about even with outside fender. I wont really know ride height til I get drive train in but I'm waiting on a couple parts to put the rears on then I'll drop it and set height. I'm just trying to get where you cant see a whole lotta space between top of tire and fender, Not slamming it just lowering some

[TobyB]

Nah, the fenders are all the same.

 What varies is the suspension settings, more than anything,

and the wheels themselves.  And people like

me tend to forget, 'oh, yeah, right, I'm running

camber plates and -2 degrees of camber- so yeah, maybe

a 7x15" et 25 wheel IS too wide for you, with 205-60-15's......

 

whut I found,

t