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I know that there was a similar tire rubbing thread earlier, but this is my story.
My drivers side tire started to rub the inner fender on left turns. After test driving 2 other c3's that my friends own, I realized that something was wrong with mine.
I crawled underneath, and saw that the bolt and the bushing were missing in the rear portion of the lower control arm. I ordered a rebuilt arm from Ecklers (Van Steele) which turned out the be the right decision. I have access to a lift at a friends house, and he was there to help perform this task. It was not difficult to change this out, the trickiest part was dealing with the spring. We put a jack underneath, separated the lower ball joint, and jacked it up over the spindle. Then, slowly lowered it and removed the spring. We reversed the process after installing the new arm.
I am going to rebuild the rest of the it when the weather is not so hot.. tie rods, sleeves, idler arm... and am going to get right side lower, along with the 2 uppers. I also plan on replacing the tires... which are at least 11 years old.
Your marking on the inner fender have a very close resemblance to mine. I'm going to have to take a close look underneath the car. Bet using the two-post was nice! I have a Kwik-Lift in the garage which is great for anything non-suspension related.
Use of the lift made the job much easier, but it can be done on the ground with a floor jack. The spring isn't super long, so it came out fairly easily, without the use of a spring compressor.
There was a previous post about the larger rear bolt head being difficult to get a hold of to stop it from spinning. I didn't have that issue. The 2 front ones thread into a plate. I also replaced the sway bar links and the ps ram bushing.
It was actually fun to work on and the best part is no more tire rub (or fear of the suspension falling apart while driving).
sounds like you solved the issue, however I would add new shocks to the mix, as from the repairs you listed I would assume they are also in need of tlc, that should finish stiffening the suspension to oem specs.
Shocks are on my list also. I already received the tie rods, sleeves and idler arm from the highly advertised auto parts website. All these items are Moog, which are expensive but I only want to do this once.
08-13-2018, 09:17 PM
'79 Tire Rubbing on Left Turns
