Steering, Suspension, & Brakes

Things have been going very, very slowly with the Hillman. Working on the front and rear suspensions, and it's a frustrating process when everything is modified, from a donor car, etc. You guys know how that goes, solve one problem which creates a new problem. I found out that the Alpine suspension, which allows me to run disc brakes in front, also unfortunately widens the track by 2". So, the dayton wires are out as the offset is wrong and they stick out in front. Being on a budget, I found a set of wheels at the u-pull-it for now, late model mercury cougar. What say you?



They need a little spacer in both front and back, measuring with washers tells me 3/8" is about ideal. Is it safe to run that thick of a spacer? I'll have to install longer studs. See, one problem leads to another...

The wheel in the picture has a 205/65/15, and I'm either going to buy 185/65 or 195/60 tires. They tuck nicely in the rear but a narrower tire is going to look better in the front as the wheel still sticks out just a little further than I'd like. I hate to run two different sizes but I might end up doing it anyway.

Ryan, Just my opinion but, I would use 1" spacer that has studs on it on the rear to even track width. Then go with the 195/60 tires all the way around.

Thanks Jim. I haven't actually measured the width of the rearend, it's a narrowed 7.5" Ford. I don't know what the track of the rear is compared to the front. It doesn't appear, to my eye at least, that the rear wheels need to move out that much. I won't know for sure until I get the tires on that I'm going to use. In the front, I don't want to move the wheels out at all but I have to go to the 3/8 spacer as there is interference with the upper a-arm and the wheel. It's pretty frustrating because I ignorantly thought that the alpine suspension would be the same in all dimensions and the dayton wires would be fine. There's not much I like less than tires/wheels that stick out, and it's turning out that there just isn't much room in front to tuck the tires inside the fenders. I'd love to measure the fender lip to fender lip width of an alpine compared to my Hillman, just to see how they compare.