Wheels I thought work work seem odd.

Cougar Community Classic Cougar Maintenance Restoration and Repair
1

I picked up new wheels and tires this week but something doesn’t look quite right to me.

They are MB Old School rims in 17x8 with 4.5" backspacing. For the tires I have BFG g-force comp 2 A/S which I really like the look of too. Size is 225/50 r17.

One of my main goals was to get rid of some rubbing on the fender lip that happened when turned sharp. I thought the wheels I had on there might not have had the correct dimensions. It looked like most people were having success even with 245 wide tires so I thought the 225 would be a good choice.

I have only put one on in the front but the edge of the metal rim and the tire are sitting flush with the lip of the fender. If I go over a bump I would think it will rub. Did I order the wrong wheels or tires? 17x8 sounded pretty safe reading other posts on here. Are my fenders out of position or something going weird with my suspension geometry? I just replaced all of it. The wheels seem to fit really well on the back side and clear the upper arm mount by ~1/2 inch.

Any ideas? I don’t want to put them on and drive around and then decide they aren’t right and try to take back used tires.

Thanks!

Tom

2

From the picture it looks like they have the wrong offset and that’s pushing the whole wheel out too far. Do you know what offset they have?

BTW, most places will not take back wheels once they’ve had tires mounted on them so you may already be past the point of no return.

3

They have a 4.5 inch offset which is what they recommended and what sounded like the right measurement.

4

4.5" is the back space. I’m talking about the offset, which is different.

http://www.autoanything.com/wheels-rims/wheel-offset-vs-wheel-backspacing

5

Ok. Those terms are always confusing to me for some reason. The wheels have 0 offset.

6

I used this comparison tool to compare a stock 1968 Cougar wheel with the 17x8, 0 offset wheel you have. It notes that the 17x8 with a 225/50R17 tire will stick out 0.9" farther while being 0.3" closer to the suspension.

http://rimsntires.com/specspro.jsp

You can play with different tire sizes to see what will work best on the front compared to the original sizing.