I ordered some aftermarket wheels for my truck and had the front two put on and tried to move my truck but it didn't move very easily. I took the wheel off and noticed marks on the caliper, the company I bought the wheels from said that ford had a few different companies make the calipers and not all calipers are the same. He said to grind a little bit off the calipers. Wasn't sure if anyone else ran in to this problem or if grinding on the caliper was a good idea.

 

it sounds to me like you got the wrong backspacing. in the racing community, griding the calipers a small amount is fairly common. I wouldnt do it though. check the backspacing on the wheels and make sure they sent you the right thing and if they did, look into a small wheel spacer.

 

The caliper doesn't rub the face of the wheel it would be the top of the inside of the wheel. Its the right backspacing.

 

so its rubbing the wheel barrel. hmm. like i said, alot of people grind calipers down but i would never do it on my daily driver. i dunno.

 

what size is your rim?

the smallest rim you can use is a 17" rim.

there are 2 different caliper/rotor setups for the 04/05 trucks. the original, and the new improved that is used by 06+ trucks


sounds almost like you put 16" rims on there, or the backspacing is wrong

 

17X8 with 4.5" backspacing my lift kit said I can go with a max of 5" backspacing. So what was improved on the caliper?

 

it was really the rotor that was improved. something about the materials being wrong. but the fix involved a slightly different style caliper as well

still got your stock rims? I believe they are 4.5" OEM backspacing. might want to check your new rims

as for the calipers, I wouldn't grind them. give a parts store a quick look and measure what they sell for a 2006 F-150 vs what is installed on your truck.

how much clearance do you need to keep from rubbing? grinding scares me, but if you only need 1/8" or so, then that probably would be safe if the caliper has enough metal to spare

 

It sounds like there is minimal contact between the caliper and the wheel. As the OP said, he could turn the wheel. Can you post a pic to show where the contact is, on the caliper? You might want to search something like Baer brakes to see if they list any info regarding recommended caliper to wheel clearance. While you can grind to make some room, you're going to be running much tighter then these parts are designed to be. And remember when you apply your brakes, especially if you're working them hard, you're going to induce a fairly heafty amount of heat into the caliper and it will expand. Will it be enough to contact the wheel, I can't say, but you will be more prone to issues with road debris getting caught between the wheel and the caliper.

Your wheel dealer really isn't interested in helping you out with the just grind the caliper fix.

Like Tylus is suggesting, check out the newer caliper design. But check with your friendly Ford parts guy to see if they are interchangeable. Maybe that will solve this issue.