Mikes65

Does any one have experience with wheel/tire sizes on a 65 cutlass vert?
I cuttently have 225/70/14 all around and I get minor occasional scraping on the chrome front fender molding if I turn the wheel all the way.Not a big problem,avoidable if I do not crank it all the way. I would like to go a little wider on the rear however when I feel how much clearance there is to the wheel well it is only .75 to 1 inch on each side. Any suggestions??
I am going to do a front disc conversion in the near future so new wheels all around will be done also to fit the discs.

oldstata

I have 205 55 17 x8 wide on my front and they don't seem to rub any were my stock was 205 70 14 could be saging springs .on mine I have 9.5 wide by 17 with a 265 55 17 on the rear they clear great with stock suspension My car is a 65 hard top post if you would like the off set I can dig out one of the boxes they came in if you look in my albums you can check out a few pics with them on

Mikes65

Thanks oldstata
I think the wheel wells may be narrower on the convertible. Can you please measure in between your wheel wells in the area at the flat spot up in the trunk to see if mine is narrower?
Mine measures 45.75 well to well in that area. When I was restoring the car I noticed the replacement wells are listed specifically as non-convertible so they must be different. I bought them and used sections to repair mine. I think the hard tops are more rounded so yours should measure less than 45.75 in between.

oldstata

If I measure in the trunk on the flat spot in between wheel wells I get just under 46.5 I have a bunch of stuff in the trunk so I would need to pull it out tonight to get a better measurement if needed but just a quick one showed there is at least a inch differents

Mikes65

Thanks so much for your help.
No need to remove your stuff. I would have thought yours would be less to make the actual wheel area wider but it seems to be the opposite.

oldstata

No biggie I am still pretty new at this but I do know there are some guys here that are rolling on 18 tires shops are not a big help so talk to a few people

real57vetteguy

I am running 18x8's up front and 18x9.5's in the rear, the fronts are a little tight and rubbed slightly, before changing my A arms to tubular, now they fit fine!

Impin'

Mike.. if you haven't solved your probelm, I thought I'd chime in to further confuse things. According to discounttiredirect.com and a few other sites, the 225/70/14s you're running should have been correct for a vert or hardtop. Before I disassembled my '65 (so no measurements from me), I was running the same tire with no rubbing. If you're not running a factory rim, the issue could actually be related to backspacing and not the height of the tire. I'm converting to discs, so I'll be moving to a 17" or 18" wheel.
Good luck.

Rickman48

Urethane sway bar bushings and links might eliminate the rubbing - if not, a rubber mallet could give you another 1/4 - 1/2 inch, just be careful!

droptopron

Maybe try one of these

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...eel-sizes.html

Mikes65

So I am now beginning my search for new wheels ans tires
The figment I have now is the 225/70/14 all around as mentioned above
The tires measure 9 inches wide and 26 diameter on 7 inch rims with 4 inch back space
I am considering going with 17 x 7 with 4.25 bs in front with 225/45 17 tires which measure 8.9 w x 25.1 dia
Rear 17 x 8 with 4.5 bs and 255/45/17 tires that measure 10w x 26.1 dia
I believe I am helping my clearance issue up front by moving .25 in on the bs and the 1 inch smaller tire
In the rear I believe since I am moving the bs .5 and adding the 1 inch to the tire width the tire will be .5 wider on both the inboard and outboard
Are my assumptions correct?

joe_padavano

You are correct in that increasing BS by 0.5" and width by 1" centers the added width. Unfortunately, your 17x7 with 4.25 BS on the front will make clearance worse. The A-body cars want wheels with as close to zero offset as possible. Offset is the amount that the wheel mounting surface is offset (get it?) from the centerline of the rim. Since the width of the rim is measured from the bead seating surfaces, the flange of the wheel outboard of the bead surface adds to the width, usually about 0.25". For a 7" wheel, that's about a 3.75" BS to get zero offset. An 8" wheel would be about 4.25" BS for zero offset.

Mikes65

Thanks for the reply Joe
My clearance issue is the tire rubbing on the chrome wheel lip molding on the front when the wheel is turned all the way and the car fully loaded with 4 people so not very often but I would like to address it with the new wheels if possible. The 7 inch rim with 4.25 bs moves the wheel inboard i believe so that should be .25 more clearance than i have now with 7 inch rims w 4 inch bs--correct? It seems like you are saying to go with less than 4 to clear the molding. Also I am going to do a disc conversion and I believe some add to the problem.

joe_padavano

Sorry, you are correct. I had a senior moment when I read your original post.