Even 305's are supposed to be mounted on rims that are at least 10.5" wide. While mounting them on rim that's only half an inch under the published minimum isn't quite a pass/fail thing, it does represent giving up some of the margins of safety that proper mounting provides, and the tire WILL tend to move laterally more under cornering when mounted on a too-narrow rim.

There are fender-rolling tools (Eastwood?) - somebody in your area may have one. One trick is to heat the metal (hair-dryer?) so that the paint becomes more flexible (IOW, it's definitely not a job for outdoors in the winter). Otherwise, it takes a delicate touch with the body tools and maybe blocks of soft wood.

Lift kits will hurt the handling, though not by as much as they did with the old leaf spring cars. And they will increase the rear fender to wheel gap that everybody hates.


Norm

 

NEWSFLASH!!!!

........the S197 comes from the factory with the rear fender lips rolled already

 

funny lol