Drop Spindles and Wheel Spacing

[super90kyote]

Question?
How many people have installed drop spindle on a stock width beam and then run into clearance problems with the fenders? I just installed a set of 2.5 inch spindles on my 56, now I didn't measure anything before the install. But I had lots of clearance. The tires are 125 mounted on bubble centrelines, The car looked as if it had a narrowed beam already. Before I start working on the car again it looks like I'm going to have to buy a 2inch narrowed beam!

Just looking for input and what other people have run into.

Cheers

[Chris]

yep, that happens. I think the drop spindles end up pushing things out about an 1 1/2 inches

[owdlvr]

I think you mean .25"...or at least, that's how much for ball-joint beams. Kingpins really get effected that much??

-Dave

[silas]

what exact area are you having clearance issues? tire to fender lip? tire to inner wheel well? top of the tire to fender? tire to front of the fender lip (front of car) or tire to rear area of the fender lip? tire to headlight bucket?

are you running an adjustable beam? because i was looking at pics of your car and it looks like you have an adjustable beam in there and that it was set pretty low (which will "move" the tire & wheel forward and off center in the fender).

so i would start by using the adjusters and setting the beam at it's highest ride setting and using the spindles for the initial drop. then fine tune the ride height to your liking by using the adjusters. then see exactly where your clearance issues are and go from there.

regardless, a narrowed beam would help. like chris & dave have said, the l/p drop spindles do increase the track a bit (i think it's closer to 3/4 - 1" total...but i cant remember exactly).

[super90kyote]

Sorry about that it made sence to me when I wrote it.
The track width is wider now and the clearance issue is between the edge of tire and the fender. If you remember a few months ago I posted that the car had terrible bump steer and was almost undrivable at speed. The beam is stock width with adjusters in both the upper and lower tubes. All the leafs are in the beam. The adjusters were set almost as low as it could go before the drop spindels.
I never had any clearance issues before the drop spindles, so I'm guessing that narrower beam with shock towers is in order for the car.
I have tried setting the ride hieght by setting the top adjuster all the way up and tried to fine tune with the bottom adjuster. That left the car to high so I went back and came down one notch on the top tube. Adjusted from there and that is when I started to see the clearance issues.