Well you guys may remember my fender rubbing issue from a few years back .. well i didn't do much about it simce I had aftermarket wheels. but now I have 7" fuchs on the front and here is my issue ...

The front drivers rub on the fender whenever i hit a dip in the road .. the weird thing is in the morning it was fine and it got real bad in the afternoon , must have happened when the tires warmed up a bit ... I get home and I am totally baffled as I have stock wheels on it stock rubber sizes.

my front are 205 55 16s on stock 7" fuchs.

i took some rough measurements and discovered something interesting. when I take a straight edge and run it up the centre of the wheel on the drivers side i touch the tire at the top and bottom and the fender is about a 1/4 inch away. telling me the wheel is sticking out roughly a quarter inch.
When i do the same on the passenger side the straight edge touches the bottom of the tire and touches the fender and the top of the wheel is about a quater of an inch in .

I measued a friends 911 and the straight edge touches the top and bottom of the wheel and the fender al at the same time on both sides.

So can i asume my car has been tweaked at some point in it's life ?

Also I used my draco meter and I am running within .2 degrees camber of each other . One is 89.9 and the other is about 89.7 on the good side. I know i can dial in a lot more camber ( I think i need to be about 1.5 on the front ..) so that would help , but i still have the initial issue.

Does anyone know if there are any measurements i can take to see if my car has ben twweaked of if there is anything I can do ? I thought of measuring from the hub flange to the fender edge but this is practically imposible as you as have to have the wheel off for that and that would change the whole geometry.

I know these aren't exactly precise measurements but do give me something to compare.
The other issue is that on the rubbing side I can barely fit two fingers between the top of the wheel and the fender , on the non offending side I can fit the same to fingers with ease. it would tell me that I am also lower on that side although I know I am not suppose to measure this way .. but it is another clue that something is wrong with my car.

I also noticed when i point my wheel straight forward I can see the tread line on the tire of my car intersects the body visualy at completely different places on the front fender when looking directly from the front ... drivers side to apssenger side . just another visual cue that something is wrong.

Can anyone offer any opinions or suggestions or similar measurements thay have taken on their car ?

My plan is to use the draco meter to dial in some more negative camber to see if that helps. but before that i will measure the front ride height the proper way and make the necesary adjutments at the front torsion bar. Once the height is correct ( or at least even ) recheck at the fender lip and make some camber adjustments.

i am not after track set up but just don't want my tires to rub . it makes a god awefull sound and don't want to damage the paint on my fenders. I also don't think I should have to roll my fenders with stock wheels and stock measured tires.

Well we haven't had a good technical discusion for a while so this one may keep us busy for at least a few weeks .... or until someone tells me to get my car to a porsche body shop and get it measured .... cha - ching ....

 

Just got some added information ......

I was checking the Bentley for the correct measurement technique for ride height and discoverd 7 inch fronts were never stock on an SC . So that MAY explain it .. but if they were stock on Carreras I would be back to square one as the bodies are the same .....

 

It can be the result of the "hand-built" process

There was someone on Pelican with a similar situation with the rear wheels and it was never in an accident.

You will probably need to roll the fender lips with 16X7 rims up front to save the tire.

John

 

ah man that sucks cause I HATE rolling fenders. But alas I think yo may be right , the only thing that may resolve it is a rolling / camber combo. That is what was so weird about it .. the car does not look like it has been in an accident at all .. but i am no expert...

 

I also remember a post on Pelican about the 911's body. If I remember correctly, I think the body is off slightly - shifted towards the pass side - making the wheel space smaller on the driver's side - both front & back - than on the passenger side. Rolling the fender or more camber should do the trick.

Ian

 

yeah Ian that is exactly what my car shows Front and rear. about a quarter "off" on one side and a quarter off on the other side making about a half inch displacement total ..

that sucks.

So is there any way to soften up that black goop from hell ? or do I chisel it off and replace it with something. also any recomendations what to dial the front in at ? my plan is to have it profesionaly alligned next spring anyway and with only a couple of weeks of driving left here I figure I may as well see if I can adjust the camber and see where it leads me.

This is a street driven car only but i do have a fair bit of understeer on the front anyway.

 

There was never an option from Porsche for a 7 inch front Fuch wheels for either an sc or a carrera. The 7's where installed on the turbo body cars only. The front driver side will always hit before the pass side because of the hand built process and that the fender on the driver side was always the one for a tire to hit on 7's. Rolling the fender will always unfortunatly stress the paint and causing cracking..whether intially or down the road.

 

Hey Ice,

Looking in my Bentley's (for 3.2 Carreras, but like you said, I do not think there would be any difference vis-a-vis wheel fit on SCs vs. Carreras) this is what I see for stock wheel size and tire options (1984 - 86):

Standard: 185/70 VR 15 on 6J x 15 wheels
Option 1: 185/70 VR 15 on 7J x 15 wheels
Option 2: 205/55 VR 16 on 6J x 16 wheels

Curiously the wider 7J x 15 wheels were spec'd with the same tire size as the stock 6J x 15s.

For 1987 and 1988, the tires sized for standard and option 1 changed to 195/65 VR15 (Option 2 remained the same)

For 1989 the stock size for the front became the same as the previous year's option 2 (there were no options)

 

Hey Ice,
Have you had the car corner balanced? Might work, might make it worse.
Euro spec height?
Roll the fenders man! Have a couple of beers first and dive in!

 

You can always have a fender rolling party

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...ing-party.html

John

 

I have the 7" Fuchs rears installed on the front of mine. I have no fender rubbing on the driver's side, but rather on the passenger side when I hit a parking lot ramp too fast.

I'll take some measurements and post some pics if I find anything out.

If you choose to roll the fenders, you might go for a trim and bend rather than a roll. You can bend the lips up with something called a "slapping spoon" which I have used to remove parking lot dings. It looks like a heavy spatula that is machined flat. You place it against the body then hit it with a body hammer to impart force evenly and in a controlled fashion.

 

Well there is a wealth of information here guys thanks for all your thoughts .. looks like thee was a 7" option up front for Carrera at one point as an option but on 15" rims and a fairly narrow dimensioned tire. a 195 probably would not rub ....

According to Ricster it seams to be a good news bad news scenario , the good news is it looks like my car has never been tweaked , the bad news is there may be no way to fix it without Rolling ....
and I AM NOT ROLLING THESE FENDERS .. there, that felt better ....

okay so now on to other options. if I can figure out how to get the black goop off I am gonna dial in about 1 degree of camber at the front, see if that makes a difference after doing my ride height .
No Rod I have never done a corener balanace as my car has always performed quite well , braked evenly and predictably and it is not a track car so saw no real need for this expense.

Another point I failed to mention yesterday. I went down a steep hill into a right hander which really loaded up the front left wheel. and it scrapped real bad .. I pulled over and inspected that corner and bent the fender back under. After that it scrapped all the way home on even mild dips .. almost like the suspention had not reset .. weird ....

 

I have a simular problem with the left front getting chewed up on hard right turns. I'm going to check the inside tire to body clearance and maybe have .10 to .25 machined off the spacer. Plan B is firmer front shocks. My paint looks good and I'm not rolling the fender either......

 

I have about a degree of neg in the front of mine according to my garage floor calculation and using the Draco meter. I seem to also recall that the drivers wheel protrudes slightly out of the fender, but I wanted to actually quantify that before typing that as a fact, so I'll have to get back on that.

I have lowered my 911 and have soft coils instead of the stock torsions (because I drive on bad roads).

 

Hey Batman ... you have a spcaer ? or do you mean you are just going to machine some off the mounting surface of the wheel ? if so that wheel would have to be specific to that spot correct ? unless of course you did both sides .. to be honest the thought crossed my mind to.

I would appreciate if you put a stright edge verticaly down the centre of the wheel, i would be interested as to what you find .. I have 205 55 16s and The straight edge was about a quarter inch from the fender , I am curious to see if yours is the same .

The guy who came over yesterday who had 7's on the front showed me scraping on his tire also ..

Rus you have coil springs on your Carrera ? ..that must have been quite the mod..