I wouldn't worry too much A-14. it is pretty easy to roll that lip up to get the clearance you need, as long as you are careful and gentle with the hammer. start by folding the lip upwards a little bit at a time with a pair of multigrips, being careful not to fold it so far that the top jaw of the multigrips touches the outer panel as that will dent the panel. Then just do what 1200rallycar said with the block of wood wrapped in a rag and the hammer. just don't try to fold it all the way in one go - work around the gaurd folding the lip up a little bit further each time. You can do it without any paint damage if you are careful, and assuming there is no filler under the paint near the area you're working.

At various time over the years I've had 205/60 tyres on 13*6 wheels on the back of a sedan with just the lip rolled, and 195/60*14 on the front with just minor pumping as rallycar described

btw, from alot of road rally experience I can tell you that your speedo will actually be accurate with 195/60*14's, and your 175/70*13's are getting pretty close to that diametre.

175 x 70 x 13 tyres!
You should have done your homework first & saved yourself some grief.
I have used 185 x 60 x 13 on 5" rims for the first few years, then on 5-1/2" rims for at least the last 20 years on a succession of Datsuns including a 1200 ute & two 1000 models, including my lowered sedan. The same 5\1/2" mags are going on my 1000 coupe shortly.

You gotta keep the outside diameter of the tyre as close to the original tyre as possible to avoid rubbing on the inner guard.
It is also critical that the wheel offset be within reasonable limits, otherwise you will get the problems that you are now experiencing.

Please note, wheel offset & wheel backspace are NOT the same thing. I suggest that you see a large[ish] tyre dealer & ask if he has a copy of the "Tyre & Rim Association" Standards Manual. This book will have a clear description of wheel offset & it lists all the industry standard specs for just about all tyres made since WW2. My copy is dated 1988, and does not list many of the contemporary 17" & up sizes, but i don't use them, so it's still relevant for me.

The outside diameter that you should be looking for, to use on your FRONT wheels should be close to 550mm.
Your 175 x70 tyres are 576mm in diameter & this extra inch [25mm] combined with what i suspect are the wrong offset wheels are very likely to be the cause of your problem.

Hint. Do the homework BEFORE you spend the money.
Chris
PS 185 x 60 x 14 is nominally 578mm in diameter for highway type tyres.
Modifying the body for clearance simply means that you got it horribly wrong in the first place, but rolling the lip up is a recomended practice as it actually strengthens the edge, but roll it, don't bash it. Try to fill the hollow cavity with some windscreen sealant to keep out the mud which leads to heartbreaking rust.

I'd go for 60 series max!!

55s might be required. It's hard to tell without knowing the offset of the rims, or looking at how bad it is..A wheel/tyre place will know what to do...

Chris

nah they should be ok, just lip the gaurds, its hard to do without cracking the paint though, i always did it with a hammer holding a bit of wood wrapped in a tee-towel on the other side, but there is a theory about using a baseball bat that people keep mentioning, maybe this will work better

i also pulled on my gaurds a fair bit to get them to bulge out without being obvious,

oh, and you prob wont need to do this but i bent up the front corner and belted the back (under passanger feet sorta thing) of the wheel well back too, that was for 185/60/14, ad rally tyres which are alittle larger again

The tires ive got on is 175/70/13 what is the right profile to prevent this

how big are the mags? You might want to think about getting some low profile tyres that could help. or as a last resort you might have to either change the mags back to whatever was on there originally, or raise your ute!:-0

Hi guys i have put a new set of tires and mags on my ute but if i hit a bump in the road it catches against the top of the front fenders any idea how i could roll them or stop the wheels from getting damaged?