I put some new wheels and tires on my 65 Cutlass. They are Cragar Eliminator 500's, and they look like the old Hurst wheels from the mid-sixties. I have a RideTech Air Ride system on the car, and I can drop the suspension right down on the bumpstops. I dropped it down like that to check for tire rub and can see that while I have 3/8" of clearence from the outside of the tire on the passenger side, the tire is touching ever so slightly on the drivers side. I know the rear can shift to one side as it travels when a car has a panhard bar set up. However, these cars have a tri-angulated 4-link, and I don't believe they shift to one side as they travel thru their arc. What are some of the reasons the rear wouldn't be centered? Is must be directly related to how the body is sitting on the frame mounts. Perhaps I could loosen all the body mounts and try to use a bottle jack to shift it over a little to even it out. There is plenty of room for the tires when the car is at ride height, however its always good for the car to still be able to roll at the lowest possible suspension point in case you have an air ride failure. Its a so called "limp home" mode.

 

worn out bushings in the trailing arms

 

3/8" sounds like it's within specs to me. That's normal manufacturing variation.

- Eric

 

I agree. Most cars of that era had lots of extra wheel house room. So having the body set off to one side a little was normal back then. ~BOB

 

does the body sit evenly on the frame ?

my car was hit in the rear at some point and whenI first got it the body was not centered on the frame. I could easily tell inside the rear wheel wells w the rear wheels off where the frame and body are close to each other one side was touching the frame the other side had a ~1/2" gap or so

 

I don't think I have ever owned a car that the rear end was perfectly centered under the body.

 

I would think you should only be concerned about the axle to frame relationship. I also agree with MDchanics in spec comment.
Good luck with moving it on the body mounts. (no sarcasm)

 

Not even going to try to move it on the body mounts! I only had about 10 minutes to look it over before I had to go to work the other night when I first posted this thread. Today I got the car up in the air on some jackstands and had a better view of what the tire was touching. There must of been 1/2" or more of spray-on rustproofing all layered up on the drivers side wheelhouse. I heated it up with a propane torch and scraped it down to the metal. Now when the rear end housing is up against the bump stops, there is enough clearence on both sides of the car to allow it to roll without rubbing on the sidewalls in the full down position.