Body to Frame Alignment
Thread Starter
Instructor
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 195
Likes: 21
From: Upstate SC
Body to Frame Alignment
My car's left wheel and tire are slightly recessed into the wheel well. The right sticks out about an inch. I've never had a tire wear problem. Both wheels and tires look the same in relation to the trailing arms (that are new). I took it for a real wild ride in 1972 (through a concrete ditch and out airborne at high speed but landed soft on a grass slope) and ended up with no apparent frame damage but in dire need of a four wheel alignment. Could the body be shifted on the frame? I have 255's and have run them for many years. It seems that if it was skewed about a half inch to the left that resetting it on center would make the wheels both stick out of the wheel wells about a half inch. Can the body be adjusted on the frame like this? Are there any more possible explanations for this problem?
Team Owner
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 40,338
Likes: 786
From: Redondo Beach, California
Jack up the car and remove your rear wheels
If the body of your car has shifted, I would think you would be see for sure if you looked at the position of the body on frame mount #4. It's the mount on the frame wheel arch. It's on the frame a few inches past the differential cross-member. The mount is a tab that projects to the outside of the car. There's a bolt head to be seen on the bottom. Look at the way the body is aligned with that tab on one side of the car, and then compare it with the body alignment on the other side of the car. If your body has shifted the amount you have described, the body shift should be obvious.
Also, look at the opening in the front of the wheel arch where the trailing arm forward pivot attaches to the frame. There's a bolt that goes through the wheel arch to hold the trailing arm and allows the arm to move up and down. You should be able to see the head of this bolt. They'll be perhaps an inch or so between the head of this at the body. Look at the distance between the bolt head and the body. This distance should be the same as between the bolt head and body on the other side of the car.
If the body of your car has shifted, I would think you would be see for sure if you looked at the position of the body on frame mount #4. It's the mount on the frame wheel arch. It's on the frame a few inches past the differential cross-member. The mount is a tab that projects to the outside of the car. There's a bolt head to be seen on the bottom. Look at the way the body is aligned with that tab on one side of the car, and then compare it with the body alignment on the other side of the car. If your body has shifted the amount you have described, the body shift should be obvious.
Also, look at the opening in the front of the wheel arch where the trailing arm forward pivot attaches to the frame. There's a bolt that goes through the wheel arch to hold the trailing arm and allows the arm to move up and down. You should be able to see the head of this bolt. They'll be perhaps an inch or so between the head of this at the body. Look at the distance between the bolt head and the body. This distance should be the same as between the bolt head and body on the other side of the car.
