I continue to have adventures here. I bought some Chinese clinchers off ebay. They were way out of true when they arrived. No problem, I have a cheap truing stand and spoke wrench. Well, as usual it seems I've taken it from bad to worse

Thing are so bad with the rear right now that the wheel pulls way toward the left chain stay but also toward the right brake pad. Where can I start to fix this myself? Should I just loosen all the spokes and tighten? I dont have a tension meter or dish stick.

And yes these are the same wheels that I just had a heck of time mounting tires on. Obviously I should have done this truing before mounting tires and I also wonder if wheels not being tensioned correctly attributed to this issue

Too many possibilities and no usable info. I suggest you visit a local bike Co-op for some hands on help.

For reference, the tie mounting issues wouldn't be related to spoke tension or alignment, except maybe because of poor quality throughout.

With regard to how it fits in the frame, it's hard to gauge if the wheel is not true, but if the same spot on the rim, or if an aligned wheel is close to the left chainstay and right seat stay, that would indicate a frame problem.

well, i detensioned all the of the spokes and and retensioned and trued the wheel and made sure to pull the dish over toward the drive side. Did this with my cheap no frills true stand so no tension meter or fancy gauges to check my work. But the wheel now sits relative straight in the middle of the drop outs and the lateral true is pretty good. Radial true has some hops but I'm guessing I will never get that right so probably best to leave it alone. This is what you get for $300 wheels from china. Custom built with no quality control

You need to get the radial true and dish right before the lateral true. Lateral truing is always the easiest part of the job.
The brake should be adjusted to the wheel after the wheel is well centered on the frame.

It honestly doesn't sound like you have a dishing problem, since the rim should be offset toward the same direction on both the chain stays and brakes if it was a dishing issue.

I noticed something similar years ago on a bike, and it ended up being a bent frame. The other possibility that comes to mind is that you may not have the wheel seated properly.

A few pictures and/or a short video clip would be very helpful to narrow this down.

well, it's definitely not bent frame because other wheels sit perfectly fine in the drop out.

Maybe not dishing issue, maybe just my hack wheel truing skills taking something that was a little out of true and making it sideways. But I seem to have reeled it back in

Since it isn't the frame, does the axle seat properly?

It really can't be a dishing issue with what you are describing, unless I am misunderstanding.

IF the wheel is properly dished, you can flip it in the dropouts and it'll remain exactly centered.

Absolutely correct. The only hitch is, what are you using to measure the difference between foreword mounting and backward mounting? distance between brake pads and rim only works if the brake pads are centered (aligned with middle-of-axle radial line). The best device is a wheel alignment gauge (WAG). Seriously, once you get one, tell your friends, and they'll flock to you. ;-) or get some guys any gals together, and do a group buy.