Wheel spacers - good, bad?

[LONGHAIR]

As far as "clamping force" between the stud and the nut. all you need is for the nut to be fully enguaged. The stud really doesn't need to stick through...it just wasted threads after the nut has screwed past them.

If the wheel is not "hub-centric" a small spacer that still allows the nuts to be all of the way on will make very little difference. I'm sure that some engineer could calculate some difference...but in real life, it's above the normal use of the truck anyway.

[Green Machine]

For only 5/16 inch I wouldn't do it, no one is going to know the difference. I have had a wheel come off going down the road (on a car) and don't like that too much. I ran same wheels front and back on my 68 for years that has the offset problem, and it looked ok. You need to move the wheel about an inch, and when I got new wheels, I got a set that corrected for that. If you could find a 1970 rear end, many are wider and still have the 6 bolt pattern, My 70 came with a wider rear like that. For 5/16 just don't do it IMHO.

[69chevytruck]

I have the same question as you MrC1. I am using aftermarket wheels that do not ride on the hub, just the studs. The 1/4" spacers keep the wheel off the bed, but I could use some more space for when the bed is loaded.

[dennislbrooks]

SAE Bolt Diameter/thread Grade 5 Grade 8 ARP Fastener SPS Fastener MS14181 SPS Fastener


0.4375 20 Tension Capability (lb) 13338 16673 17780 20010 24453 28899
Shear Capability (lb) 11270 13680 14280 16240 19840 23450

0.5000 20 Tension Capability (lb) 18139 22674 24190 27210 33255 39302
Shear Capability (lb) 14730 17870 18650 21210 25920 30770

For properly placed and torqued bolts, can you multiply by 5 or 6? Make your own judment but I fear my studded 1.5" 6061 T6 aluminum held on with 6 7/16" most likely grade 5 or better studs with 14.5mm to wheel studs even less now. But do your own research and make your own judgments.

http://www.rockcrawler.com/techrepor...ners/index.asp

[XXL]

Originally Posted by Longhorn Man

Wow, and i normally get flamed for saying they are a bad idea

For all those why say the weight gets transferred to the stud, why isn't the weight on the stud when just a wheel is bolted up? Look at your average billet-type wheel and you'll see a "built in spacer" in the design... where the mounting pad is n inches thick. Adding a spacer just makes that pad a little thicker. And when you properly torque your lug nuts (and they've grabbed enough threads), you're not riding on them anyway.

I've been using a pair of 5/16" spacers on the back of the Wallet Eater for about 6 years. No problems... but I don't haul anything substantial.

I'm in the process of doing a 1" spacer (actually a 5x5 to 5x5 adapter) on my Tahoe.

</2 cents>