I recently purchased a 79 RX-7. The car is a 68,000 miles one owner car. It has only been driven 34,000 mile since 1982. The driver's side front tire rubs on the coil spring and apparently has for a long time because there is a grove in the tire. I can put my fingers between the passenger side spring and the tire. The drivers side is 25 inches tall at the wheel lip while the passenger side is 25.25 inches high. I assume this due to wear since there is always a driver but to necessarily a passenger. The driver's side spring appears to have six coils while the passenger side has seven. Is this difference normal? Has anyone else run into this problem?
Thanks for your help.

Larry

 

I've only had that problem when I ran the wrong sized tires up front.

Mario III

 

Are these stock wheels?

I don't believe springs should have a different number of coils.

 

I left out that the tires are 185 70r13's on the factory waffle style wheels. The distance from the strut to the frame is the same on both side as is the distance from the strut to the face of the rotor. The distance across the driver's side spring coils seems to get larger sooner than those of the passenger side. I may just have to go to a new set of springs.

Larry

 

I had this problem on my FC with the same tire... I however have a coil over system on my car and when the car was jacked up the spring did not sit correctly and caused the tire to rub.. I thought it was werid But I jacked up the car and remounted every tire and problem solved.... The springs should not have differetn coils tho... Maybe you are experiencing the same problem i had.. I would jack the car up and make sure your springs are sitting properly.. If it had rubbed for a while if should have blown out.... so it may be more recent.... I am not to familular with thr first gen but i would then check for any damaged suspension componets... with multiple things going bad at once you should do a run through on the entire suspension....