Rear Axle Housing Width issues

[mjhcobra]

I finally settled on the size of wheels and tires and then, after borrowing a set to try out, find that my axle dimension from face to face on the rotors is to wide for the 9.5" vintage wheels with 295/50r15 tires (3.65 offset). The tire sticks out past my fender lip about an inch. My dimension face to face on the rotors is 58" and it looks like it needs to be between 52" and 54" to get my tires under the fender lip. I am running a Ford 9" rear axle from the Lincoln Versailles that EM said was the axle of choice back when I started the project. Looks like this was not the case or they used a wheel with a small offset from the outside face of the wheel.

What is considered normal for an axle width with this size tire/wheel and offset?

It appears that my options are to narrow what I have or order new. Any ideas?

I really want to keep the wheel/tire combo that I mentioned.

[Jerry Clayton]

Have the housing narrowed and axles resplined--the versi axles are some of the beefiest axles out there and can be resplined

also this will give you an opt to center the pinion in case its not in the center of the rear---many of the cars back then had drivelines off set to right and this will cause an driveline alignment issue