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Hi, all!
I've had my '67 Gal (okay, Custom 500) for 11 months now, possibly one of my greatest loves. Got a question concerning the paint on the fenders though, if anybody can help, I'd really appreciate it.
When I got the car, she had the stock 5.75(?)x15 inch wide steel rims. I upgraded to 15x7 Magnum 500s in mid-December after being assured by an 'aficionado' that 7s were the way to go, and all was well for a couple months. The rims are a bit wider, but the tread on the tires is exactly the same, since I just swapped my near-new tires from the steel wheels when I got the new ones.
The Magnums don't make the tires rub on the fenders or anything, but more recently the fenders have collected a few chips that weren't there a few months ago behind the tires. The left has chipped worse than the right, I notice. I'd have to go out and see, but the right may actually be chip-free.
Looking at old pictures, it doesn't look like the tread comes out any further (or at least, not much further) from the wheel well than it used to, and some of the chips are pretty far back from the wheel, closer to the leading edge of the door than the tire, which has me questioning whether these are tire- related chips or perhaps unlucky little gifts of chance from another source. The inner lip of the fender, directly facing the tire, does not have chips like this.
Does anybody else have experience running 7" wide rims on a '67 Galaxie/Custom 500? Is paint chipping an inherent problem with this setup that I wasn't told about before switching wheels, and if so, is there anything I can do to protect my paint when I touch it up? I've thought of switching down to 6" wide Mags, but I do not have the money to buy another new set of those things, and will not in the foreseeable future.
Another thing I just realized is that since my car is a Custom 500, there is no trim along the lower edge like there would be on a Galaxie 500. Is paint chipping on the lower portions of these cars' flanks a fairly common thing because of this lack of lower trim?
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to make sure I have my bases covered in my explanation of the problem. Thanks for any help/suggestions!
Last edited by HarvardBlue (April 26, 2013 7:46 am)
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Pictures would help explain the condition you are asking about, but I'll make an assumption. I don't think the chipping of paint along the lower body work, behine the wheel opening is related to your new wheels. With the body line on these older cars the rocker panels and bottoms of the fenders and quarter panels tend to bend inward, which exposes those surfaces to everything on the road that gets thrown up by the tires. When my 70 was my only vehicle, and even before I had the body and paint done, I installed big mud flaps to protect the paint. It works very well, but may not be the most attractive solution. At least, I am able to remove the flaps whenever I want and the paint is not abraded.
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Thanks for the reply.
It's a shame that curvature invites nicks. It's so much more beautiful and elegant than straight-down modern car sides, IMO.
Here's the pics. Y'know, I am just now remembering that the people who run this apartment complex made the monumentally stupid decision to pave both lanes of the entrance/exit roadway on the same day a couple months ago, and driving through it to get home I got some half-dried asphalt kicked up onto my fenders. I think washing it off just a few minutes after the fact may have been the first time I 'noticed' the chips, probably because most of them weren't there before that day...
PS- I notice I can't post images until I have 2 posts, so I'll post them in the next post. Please don't kill me for double posting, mods. This is "police business", or something on that level of urgency.
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Left fender. Not all of those spots are chips, of course, just the larger, more noticeable ones. The smaller spots are flecks of dirt from fair ground parking the other night, still haven't sponged that off yet.
Left fender, a little further back
Right fender... not too many nicks, the ones that are there are tiny.
And while I'm at it, a glamor shot, because I'm probably the only guy in the world who's proud to own a 4-door.
Last edited by HarvardBlue (April 26, 2013 12:08 pm)
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Thanks for the pics. That looks like road debris to me and the only way to not get any paint damage is to not drive the car, which would be a total shame. If you don't want the ugly mud flap option that I employ, then there are protective films that can be applied over the paint and extra coatings (rocker guard) that can be applied under the paint, but no real way to avoid stone chips on cars that are driven.
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Alright, thanks, glad to know I didn't just make a mistake in wheel width. This car is probably the most healthy running of my cars, so I do drive this one quite a bit, and plan to complete the restoration the previous owners started. Looking into protector films sounds feasible, think I'll do that. Really appreciate the help here, thanks again.
Last edited by HarvardBlue (April 27, 2013 7:02 am)
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