Rear wheel centering on lowered truck

[sleeper68]

I keep looking at my lowered 68 and my stock 71 and wondering why the rear wheels sit so much farther forward on the 68. I've looked at a zillion pics of other lowered trucks and it seems to be split. Some look centered and some have the wheels sitting forward like mine. Anyone have an explanation or a fix to it?

[19673ontree]

I am gonna guess that you are seeing the difference between leaf and coil spring trucks ?

[19673ontree]

Say could you post some pics of your 68 ?

[67 cst swb]

both those trucks in the above pics are coils spring trucks...

[TBONE1964]

That is very strange because typically this happens when the vehicle is raised. I am talking only about coil spring trucks with trailing arms. If you think about what happens to the rear suspension geometry when you raise or lower a vehicle with trailing arms, the rear tire should move forward when you raise and move back when you lower.

Is your 68 a factory built short box truck? Was it also original with coil springs? Any change in the rear suspension from a modified wheel base length will cause this problem.

In your case, I think the only good way to fix is to move the rear trailiong arm cross member back enough to center the wheel in the wheel well and drill new holes and bolt it in.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Different wheel offsets and widths along with camera angles. The ones that look "the worse" are the 67-70's with the narrower rear ends with 7 to 8" wheels.

The trucks above are also a shortbed and a longbed. This "appears" worse on shortbeds.

Shortbeds have a squared off end at the bottom front of the wheel opening whereas the longbeds have a curve, this also visually helps the wheel appear more centered (see pics above). That's also a sure fire way to tell if you're looking at a true shortbed or a cut down longbed.

[CC69Rat]

In my opinion, What you're seeing is the 'flat' portion of the axle perch where it sits on the trailing arm sort of rolls forward when you lower the truck. ..

You can flip the front mounts for the trailing arms over (just drill the rivets and literally flip the mounts upside down and replace the rivets with grade 8 bolts. (You have to drill two holes but nbd.)

This will roll that flat portion back to approx stock position and get you closer to factory trailing arm geometry too. You'll loose about .5" of drop as well. Ex a 6" dropped truck will look, ride, and feel like it has been dropped about 2-3". You still need shock relocation and adj track bar but the front bracket flip mod will help with the trailing arm situation.

Not proven fact.. just my opinion. That and .50 gets you a cup of coffee.

[sleeper68]

I appreciate the responses. Little things like this drive me nuts for some reason. Redneck I have spent my whole life looking at and owning several of these and have never seen the difference in the front of the wheel well until you just said it. That just blows my mind. I guess there is always more to learn!
I only have a few pics of it all in the same corner of my shop but there are 2 in my introduction thread from last week-http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=622712

[CC69Rat]

I had never noticed the curve either. Pretty cool

[brad_man_72]

You could add a spacer between the trailing arm mount and the crossmember. Probably need to move the top of the spring mount the same.

[sleeper68]

I'll look at that when I pull the bed off to do some other stuff. I thought the same as someone above that lowering should push the wheels back. So much for those geometry classes.

[19673ontree]

This truck looks like may be on a blazer frame ? It looks like the rewr wheels are forward a little bit on this one too , I thought when you lowered a truck the wheels should go back just a bit ?

[cleanfreak]

I spaced the trailing arm mount back on my 69 , I think about 3/4" , made a huge difference in the way it looked , at least to me.

[sleeper68]

I think even that much would look a lot better on mine too. Love your truck reminds me of my "Old Blue" from high school.

[hamjet]

try this to see if its a illusion or if there is a difference, tape string at same location on both trucks just under the molding, thread another piece of string with a small loop in it vertically with a small nut for weight, center the vertical string with the axle and measure that to the edge of the front wheel well along the horizontal string....(confusing the way I'm explaining it) compare the two trucks......

[Fatherof3]

Originally Posted by cleanfreak

I spaced the trailing arm mount back on my 69 , I think about 3/4" , made a huge difference in the way it looked , at least to me.

I agree that most will look a lot better moved back 3/4 of an inch. I'm in the middle of a LWB to SWB conversion and don't want to permanently mount my trailing arm crossmember until the bed can be set on for this reason.

[Undone]

Originally Posted by cleanfreak

I spaced the trailing arm mount back on my 69 , I think about 3/4" , made a huge difference in the way it looked , at least to me.

Any changes to coil spring top mount?

[sleeper68]

Looks like adding a spacer behind the brackets as mentioned would be a good way to do it not sure about the spring perch yet I was too busy pulling the motor.

[picklito]

Older thread I just found, but thought it was interesting... I need to move the wheel back and get the thrust line correct. I'd been thinking of putting spacers of correct thickness between the crossmember and the trailing arm brackets. Seems like a very good way to do this.

[cleanfreak]

I didn't see any posts to this thread a year ago , now I'm "that guy" who didn't respond....sorry. I did not move the spring any when spacing the arms back , the springs seemed just fine.