Bizzarro lowering problem on my Chevy

I sat the 50 back on it's on feet last night. But, because my nickname is "Lucky" I found I had a problem. Here's the skinny.

1950 Chevy Fleetline
1957 Chevy pass car rear end
Walton's 2.5" leaf springs
3" lowering blocks

I measured the rear end and it is dead nut on center. I mean within .030" , (I am usually not this anal but I wanted the tires to center up right in the wheelwells.)

I measured the distance from the body to the outer side of the brake drum, every place possible to verify that this is centered. I had the frame on jackstands and was all leveled from the frame work I was doing. The body was measured to the ground to verify the same height.

The problem is I can put the left tire on easily but the right has to be forced while someone lifts up on the body. This could be a real problem if I have a flat on the road.

Anyone else have this problem? Maybe the body panels were stamped different from side to side?

 

i'm not familiar with a `50 chevy , but i have found differences from side to side in ford fenders , especially on `40 fords..so i guess what i'm saying is i'm not surprised by your problem. or it could be from damage and poor repair sometime in the past


this probabilly doesn't help much

 

When I dropped my '54Chevy a similar amountI also put wider tires on it. Now I have to jack up off the side on the frame and let the rear end travel to the bottom of its travel to get a tire on. I assume (yes I know that's bad) you might still be trying to jack on the pupkin? This didn't allow enough room for changing on mine due to the extra tire width but after it drops down it should make enough room.

Thanks, Tim

 

No that was with the frame holding all the weight.
The tire is about as narrow as I can get. It's a 205 70 15.

 

Hmmm, Maybe the car was hit like was said before. Or the rim off-set is causing this. What rims are you running? Do you have a Panhard bar to adjust out the side to side to center the difference? I was also running a '55-63 style for a while when I first lowered mine, but had no interference problems. I check around and see. I have a buddy with a '50. Maybe I can measure something for you.

Thanks,
Tim

 

The thing is it has to be assembly differences. The car was never wrecked to my knwledge. I took it down to bare metal. The rims are stock 50 Chevy rims. I am getting different rims from Flat Top Bob from his salvage. Hopefully it will still fit with the new rims/tires.
But the thing is....the left wheel fits.....ya know?

I really didn't wanna offset the rearend. Even if I did the most I could go would probably be 1/4".

 

Bummer, I'm outta ideas. Might have to tub it now and add steam rollers LOL. I hope the new rims work out. Flat Top Bob is a great guy. Sorry I couldn't help.

Tim

 

A friend had this problem with a '55 Chevy. If you're carefull, you can use a port-O-power to nudge the wheelwell out a bit. Knowone can tell on his.

 

i'd take a bare rim & use it to take any measurments. also be sure the body is square on the frame cause ya figure that after 50yrs even we're not str8 on our own "frames"...joe

 

Does the rear bumper sit level when the car is sitting on its wheels? I know this sounds stupid, but if the body leans one way or another it could affect the tire deal.

 

It's common for Shoebox Fords to be closer on the left rear body to tire clearance than on the right.

It's a body mis-alignment problem because some of them are worse than others.

Probably the same for your Chevy.

One fix was to hacksaw the inner flange in several places and bend the now short pieces up out of the way with pliers.
Done carefully, the paint etc. was not harmed.

 

Yeah, I measured the distance from the wheelwell to the ground. Also, meeasured from the rockers to the ground and the rear bumper area. I might jack up the body and add rubber shims under the body mounts to raise the body a little. I REALLY like the stance of the car now.

C9. That would work except I hafta have the flange for my skirts.

 

Just for shits and giggles, did you put the wheel from the side that fits on the other side, just to rule out a possible flaw in the wheel?

 

As you probably figured, you don't saw all the way to the bend.
Just far enough to bend an inch or so of the flange up.

Would it work to bend the flange up in the area above the brake drum so the tire would have room to go in?
Or maybe in several areas to aid in wheel installation?
Retaining enough flange for the skirts to key on?

 

One more thought . . . sometimes you can get a large wheel/tire combo in by leaning the top of the tire outward with the bottom of the tire sitting on the ground about where it will go when bolted up.

The tire is then tipped inward at the top and if you're lucky the wheel will clear the brake drum while the tire just misses the fender flange.

An old trick with drag slicks.


Maybe you oughta think about building a highboy . . . no probs with them....

 

One more and then I'll shut up.

Any chance your shocks are mismatched and the rght side shock is too short and not allowing the rear axle to drop down low enough?

 

My dad has a '50 Chevy coupe with a '57 chevy rearend. Sounds like you've aready checked all the measurements but is the measurement from the backing plate to the spring the same on both sides?

'49-'54 Chevy's rearends came offset from the factory. I believe it was a GM thing because my '49 Olds is the same way. I have less room on the left side than the right. Depending on the wheel tire combination I'm running I occasionally get some tire rub with Body roll.

One thing you can do to gain a little extra space is to remove the brace inside the quarter. My Dad did this on his coupe. I was able to just remove one bolt that was rubbing and not have to take out the entire brace on my Olds.

 

The same problem occurred on this '55 wagon. I bolted in a posi rear from a TA. To mount the 15x10 wheel/tire combo the passenger side had to be taken down to like 10 psi, even with rolling the inner fender lip I still had to fight it up in there. Though the driver side would slide up in there with a nice fit. Not good as I want to switch over to slicks Wed. nites and weekends. So I went to 15x8's and the same tires and problem solved. This one has never been wrecked either, I think it has more to do with a long life and a relaxation of the ass

 

I had this problem on my 53' brand new shocks, same model # on boxes, but when I checked later the shocks had a 1" difference in length and a different # on the shock itself.

 

The shocks aren't mounted yet.

Ya know what I may do is loosen all the body mount bolts and scoot the body around until I get the clearance I need on both sides. I am thinking it shouldn't take much.

Once the tire is past the outer fenderwell it fits perfect. It has 2 inches on the inside of the tire.

 

Actually, I haven't. I am going to dick with it some more in the future. I was just trying to get it back on all fours so I could move it around.

 

I had this exact problem on my 1950 ford. I ended up doing two things:
C9's suggestion of trimming the fender lip. Hated doing that.
Thinner wheels/tires.

'course then I lowered the car enough that I still have to drop the rear end to get the tires off... resolving that in a future project.

 

my 53 wagon has the same issue, I know we check and double checked it being center but when it was all done, the passenger side was closer to the lip then the driver side

 

All measurments should be made from the chassis. Loaded suspension mesurements are preferable and in many situations necessary. With rear suspension loaded drop a plumb line from the side of the frame at the kick up area . measure the distance from the plumb line to the axle flange. This should confirm the axle is centered side to side in the frame. Next check to see if the body is centered on the chassis. Quick measure is from side of rear rail kick up to 1/4 w/o flange . If all good , check these areas , shock travel length , rear spring arc or the rear shackle movement .

 

Done all of it using a plumb line. That's why I am so baffled.

I also don't think I can run a narrower wheel/tire. I am planning on running a radial 205 70 r 15 with a WWW. I can't get the WWW I want any smaller than the 205's.

 

I measured the heck out of everything when I swapped my rear and still had the same problem...had to use a scissor jack between the frame and leaf to get the wheel back on just on that one side. That's the side that rubs on the skirt tabs I mentioned in the other thread.

Bryan

 

GM rearends are not exactly center of the drums ..there off set to one side more than the other side..not sure what side is closer to the fender but i know there not centered..ask anyone with a lowered s10 or fullsize chevy pickup...ask a minitrucker these problems have come up a time or 2..not sure how you can solve your problem except change the wheels

 

They haven't got any better over the years. My 86 Grand National
was 1/2" different side to side...

 

Let some of the air out of the tire, slip it on, and quit worrying about it... Hell, you shoulda seen us trying to get the tire off the back or my chevy on the side of the road in waco, tx, last year..(and it's really dark there too!)

FWIW, if you look up in the fenderwell, you will notice the inner panel bulges out right where the tire is. I "clearanced" mine on the offending side with a BFH before paint..

Brian

 

Really? I'll hafta look into this. I have a BFH.