The leaf springs on a Cuda are not parallel to the frame rails. With the 4.5" BS wheels in front of the axle there was 1.5" of clearance between the tire sidewall and the spring; behind the axle there was only 3/4" of clearance. Again I turned to the Moparts archives to see if there was clear consensus on how much clearance was needed to be safe. Unfortunately there were mixed opinions on this. In the end I decided that 1/4" of clearance behind the axle after going to 5" BS wheels was not going to be safe enough, again because it was a street car.
Some folks put B-body rears under an E-body to allow for more BS. I may consider that at some point as well, but if I did that I would go with a Dana, and there was no funds to undertake such a project at this time. The other option was to move the rear spring perches on the 8 3/4. That would violate my "nothing but bolt-ons rule", and besides, I was not up to welding, and didn't know anyone I would trust to do it either. I was stumped on how to make this work the way I wanted.
After pondering the dilemma for some time, I finally had an insight that lead to my current solution. There was plenty of leaf spring to tire sidewall clearance in front of the axle, and where I need the additional clearance was solely behind the axle. The wheelwell itself had more than adequate clearance for the 275/60/15. I realized that if I could pivot the leaf spring about the spring perch locating pin, then I might be able to use more backspace without having to cut off and re-weld the spring perches. Based on the stock E-body leaf spring dimensions (22" front segment, 35" rear segment), it appeared that if I moved the front eye of the spring OUT away from the centerline of the car by 1/2", then I would gain 1/4" of additional clearance behind the axle. If I could achieve that then I would have 1/2" total clearance between the spring and tire sidewall.
Moving the front spring segment towards the tire was a bit counterintuitive, but I was hoping that perhaps a front eye hanger from another body style would help. At that point I called the good doctor (DrDiff) to consult on the feasibility of what I was trying to do. He indicated that I could try to use his A-body 1/2" offset front hangers, mounted on the wrong side of the car to change the offset direction, and his E-body 1" offset rear hangers. The thinking was that there would be enough play in the arrangement to use the 1" offset instead of the 3/4" I had calculated. Cass told me that Use of the A-body front hanger required a 5/8" hole, but that was easy to accommodate. The other downside was that the A-body front hanger could not directly provide the stock E-body height; there were two holes for the spring bolt, and one would lower the car by 1/4" and the other would raise it by about 1" (if I remember what he told me correctly). I decided this was close enough to try!
The assemble was straight forward, and I decided to use the upper mounting hole for the eye of the spring. The axle perches easily set down on the locating pins. I could now see that the leaf spring was almost parallel to the centerline of the car. Measurements from the brake drum mounting surface confirmed that all was going to plan. I ordered up a set 5" BS custom offset 15 X 8 Torq Thrust IIs, which took about 4 weeks to come in. I then got the MT ET Street Radials moved from the previous rims to the new ones, and put them on the car. I was much more pleased with the appearance, and just recently put the car back down on the ground on 4 tires. The tires are now nicely located in the wheelwells, and the size is somewhat concealed.
