69 Cougar - Tire & Wheel Sizing

Now that we have the suspension installed the next thing is tire and wheel sizing. Offset or how far in or out the rim and tire sit is crucial for clearance and looks. We start by choosing a few tires we believe will be close and using our custom offset gauges we check the tires for fit.

Different angles are important and seeing ride height clearance is a must.

We jack up the lower control arm with a piece of wood as a protection devise to see the tire at ride height. The weight of the car pushes against this and closes the spring allowing the tire to come up in to the fender as if it was sitting normally with all the weight in the car.

As seen we have pretty good clearance but I still want to go in a 1/4 inch more. You have to be sure you do not hit the ball joint with the rim and or bead of the tire on the back side.

Another concern is the front tire to fender clearance. Choosing a tire diameter that looks good in a car is vital but unless you are able to re arch the wheel opening you will be somewhat limited. The front tire diameter is coming out close to what we are looking for.

Both front and rear wheel edges are important. We will not be installing wheel opening trim on this project so a small amount of altering on the front of the fender opening will not be an issue if need be.

As seen we are about 1/2 inch away from the ball joint on the back side so we only have about 1/4 inch more we could go.

The rear tire has around 1 and 3/8 inch clearance. We usually cut back the wheel lip and smooth the edge for clearance and better looks on cars that will not get a molding installed so we will end up with 1 and 3/4 inch if we left the rim offset where it is now.

We go on to the back tire at the rear qter panel. The rear is some what forgiving compared to the front tire but overall diameter on the back is really important.

In the back Ford cars seems to always have the tire a bit closer to the front of the car by a 1/4 to 1/2 inch, but we can center this and change the wheel base a bit when we install and tweak the rear suspension.

We altered the offset and as seen we are some what closer to the inside wheel house now about 3/4 inch away.

This tire diameter appears a bit too large for the stock openings as these are 29.0 tall. We are going to take these back to Discount Tire and pick up a set of 28.0 for a more natural better looking fit. Sometimes you have to try a few sizes to get that dead on look/fit.