rear fenderwell ideas for 56 pontiac

[hillbilly]

In the next few weeks, when I begin getting the transmission and bellhousing swapped out, the dual master cylinder adaptation taken care of, and the exhaust fixed, I am going to be re-working the rear fenderwells somewhat.

The way it is set up, I can BARELY get the wheel/tire out of either side withough their being deflated, and the tires I really want to run will not go in at all without first taking the shocks loose, then the rear shackle and dropping the whole rearend enough to clear...this was impossible to accomplish with NORMAL tires when the 4" blocks were installed, not to mention the fact that the mounting plates were ON THE GROUND when a flat tire occurred (makes changing tires a wee bit dangerous on the side of the road...)

I was thinking something like a '56 chevy would work, but, I am asking for suggestions here, maybe even one on something I could do for the suspension (air shocks already tried...) any help would be appreciated.

no, this isn't MY chieftain, I dont have a pic from this angle of mine...mine is black...



Mark

[mr57]

55 Nomad rear 1/4's. Then you could run whatever size tires you want. And the body line on the rocker would be the same.

[Kustom55]

having a 55 starchief, I know what you mean by that. There is a lot more room in the Starchief than the chieftan, which I have had both, cheiftan is way too small.
It depends on how big you want to go. You can always do the 54-55 Buick thang with skirts. I had coker 15x7 on the rear of my chieftan before and yea, it was a tight fit, but it worked.
Here is a pix of the chieftan I had with cokers 15x7

[Kustom55]

here is a pix of the current starchief with Denman G78-15 on 7". Think hard about this because you dont want to mess up the body line that parallels the side trim.......

[slammed]

This Red and black tu-tone is stunning. Nice.

[Rocky]

I think you're gonna live with it unless you make drastic changes to the inner wheelwells. There's just no room unless you do surgery like moving the springs to the inside of the frame and widening the inners.
Do you really need a fat tire under it? Maybe a 7" cheater slick would help?

[hillbilly]

that red and white looks great...kinda what I had in the back of my mind for mine, except in the '56 configuration...

rocky, I been lookin at that inner fenderwell, it could be a problem. I'm not really looking to run Fat tires, just something with some height to it, the problem lies in the clearance between the brake drum and inner fenderwell, with it sitting at stock height in the rear, it is difficult to get wheels and tires in there, impossible when lowered the way I had it.

this photo, if it will load, is how she sat when I got the car..

[hillbilly]

I have smaller tires on the front now, the chrome skirts are in the trunk, looking for a new home, the 4" blocks that were in the rear were removed after a flat tire ordeal on I-40 that caused some mental anquish...

Would removing a couple leafs, using 2" blocks, and using air shocks be a safe option?

Here is a pic of what I was thinking about doing, because of the inner fenders that rocky was talking about, this would be more difficult than it looks, but I think it looks ok....I would rather find something that worked without removing that body line though.

[Kustom55]

Look at pix of 1956 Chevy rear wheel wells. I think those would look great and you can still put a skirt on it.