I've noticed the left rear tire rubbing the fender on occasion.

The right has a little more than 1/2 inch of room. The left has less than 1/4 inch.

Is this difference normal? Or an indication of a problem I should be looking into.

195x50 tires. No spacers. The car seems to sit level.
Wheels are cambered and toed the same.

They're all different ... no one said the Germans were precise. Just a normal occurance.

I had simalar spacing between tire and fenderwell, but a rear wheel allighnment cleared that up quite a bit.. could be your rear wheel camber/toe are different for each wheel, also tire wear ect.. get a pro rear wheel allighnment and see the truth.. rubbing is not factory ..

Pretty normal really.

Thanks for the replys.

Possibly related: I see that the rear-trunk shock mounts are not equal either.

The right side has about 1/2 inch more shock thread showing than the left.
Never fear - theres a stack of shimms on the right to make up for it. (even proper 914 shims)!

I haven't taken anything apart to see why this would be done.

Hate to point out the obvious, but it's a 35 year old car. If it's not an alignment issue, look for evidence of bodywork. There's no telling what kind of damage this thing has seen

I had a similar issue on mine. I measured the distance from the fender lip to the longitudinals at 3" spaces all around the fender well and corrected the bad fender with a small scissor jack and a couple of straps of plywood to reduce scarring. Cracked the heck out of the paint, but it needed paint anyway.

On my 914 I have the same issue. Less fender room on the left than right. This is on one with steel flares. A friend with FG flares also has the same issue. Neither of us are rubbing on the left side and we both have correct alighnment.....

Perhaps new rear springs would help?

or it could even be an adjustment in the front... if the front right height isn't equal... the high front side will cause the opposite corner in the rear to be lower

Actually they all came this way from the factory, a very legitimate source told me this the other day.

My right side is the closer of the two. 8mm differnece.

A small differnece is also common in old VW's, wait a minute these are old VW's, but excessive shimming on one side and 1/2 dif. inch on shock mounts, plus occasional tire rubbing are all sighns..and not factory.. check your shocks, springs and bushings,tie rods, tires ect.. BEFORE!.. you get a four wheel allighnment..

Ummmm that would cause me fear... no such thing as a "stack" of proper 914 shims. You have other issues at work here.

I've got an Eastwood Fender Roller set up (modified) to fit Porsche bolt pattern. If you want to try it for clearance let me know... Neighbor

I repaired some front end damage early in ownership. Bent control arms and damaged ball joints I'd contribute to too many curb impacts or the like. So I may be just trying to find more - or being too anal about the car.

Here is the shock tower difference. The pictures now show why. Such a simple answer.
Click to view attachment

There are 3/8" worth of shims on the rear right though.

I measured the front fenders-to-ground. They are the same - 24".
Both control arms adjustment-to-ground are the same - 6.5".

The shocks are the cheap ones no one here likes (KYB?).

Looks like the car was hit pretty hard at one time. I bet the frame is bend ...

Andy

Click to view attachment

I'll chalk up the tire-to-fender difference as being "typical".

914World searches indicate tire width of 195 is max with non-flares and I agree with that.

I'll look into fender rolling and pulling.

I will also add professional alignment and new shocks to my to-do list.

Thanks for all the replies! This site is very helpful for a non-mechanic, like me. I really love my 914.

I see that the nuts are different sizes. What are you seeing?

I'm running wide 205's all they way around with no rubbing, and both sides within a 1/8" of each other. The strut mount welded in makes me wonder on the short side what happened, and if the lower part of the strut that holds the spring in to the strut is not set right, you will have that as well. I would pull the strut on that side and check it out, only takes 10 minutes to get it out. I had one side come apart on me on the FWY, fixed it at lunch in the parking lot.

I see that the metal cup on the left (top of the shock tower) is welded in by hand while the one on the right looks to be stock.

I have seen his kind of damage before. It happens when someone slides sideways into a curb and the rear trailing arm gets shoved under the car pulling the shock and the top of the tower down.
See pic below ...

The only way to fix this correctly is to put the car on a bench and pull it back to factory specs.
Andy

Before you go too far take the rear wheels off and measure into the inner fender well to the outer edge of the fender lip to see whats what. Try to put a straight edge on both inner wheel wells with a plumbob and see where the trailing arms are side to side. Of course the car needs to be level to use a plumbob.

I helped him roll the lip on the 4th. You can barely tell. He may eventually need to put on a frame machine but the car is VERY nice and drives straight. If I were him, I would wait until the car gets wrecked again before fixing it.