Pinto Car Club of America

I have a 86 T-Bird Turbo coupe I'm parting out. I would like to use the 15 Aluminum wheels on my 80 Pinto wagon with 205/ 15"-70s tires  on them.  Does anyone know if this combo will work?  Is there enough clearance?
Tom D.

I am currently running 205-50-15's on my 73, a little different, but these same wheels rubbed a little on my 79 wagon.  I think you may be able to use the wheels, possibly with spacers, but I do not think the 70 series tires will work on the front.

i agree, i think the 70's are a bit too tall and you might have some rubbing issues.

Generally the T-bird and Mustang wheels will require a 1/4" spacer to clear the upper control arm. Even with the spacer, there may still be clearance issues with the control arm at full lock on the steering. These wheels run around a 5" back spacing, which is substantially more of an negative offset than the stock wheels have. I ran the 15x7 steel wheels used on the '86 Mustang Police Specials using the 1/4" spacers on a '77 wagon I had for a couple of years. Being steel, these are thinner than the alloy wheels and they were still close on the control arms. I ran 205/50-15 tires and had one spot where they would rub the inner fender shield at full lock. These tires are 23.1" tall, so a tire this tall, but slightly narrower, would probably clear everything without any problems.

I had a set of mustang 10 holes on my 73 wagon with 225/60r15's on them, the tires rubbed at full lock either way, but not at any other time. the tires were too tall, I think a set of 225/50's would have been much better.