wheel spacers

[shanes-ta]

im looking at maybe putting wheel spacers on my 89 grand wag and wondered about issues and drawbacks with wheel spacers.

im building my own with a lathe and havent decided on a width. im also thinking of putting 20" rims off of a nissan or newer gm 6 bolt to go with some tractor tires.

ANOTHER ISSUE i might run into is the center bore on the new rims not being big enough to clear the hubs... any way to fix this the right way? (keeping this a cheep build)

[Ryan]

the toyota 4wd's have the correct center bore (I'm running some 20" toyota-version pimp rims on one of my rigs and had to do that to clear the front hub). For spacers, I've seen many of them crack, never personally liked them or felt comfortable using them.

[Brent]

If you want a good wheel spacer that won't crack and won't come apart, expect to pay $300-350 for them. I have seen spacers for $50-100 and I wouldn't trust them in my driveway.

[Ryan]

he's making his own on a lathe.....

[shanes-ta]

does it matter to have billet alluminum versus steel or any other matterial? what is the grade of alluminum needed to have no cracking if i have 2-3" spacers if you were to guess. i may machine my own...

[Kodiak Commando]

I would not use a spacer wider than 1.5 inches for sure. Especially the front due to the scrub radius being changed Unles the rim you chose pluss the spacer keeps the scrub within specifications. Tire wear and death wobble can happen with modified scrub. I designed the spacers used on the rear only of Sprortsmobile 4x4 Vans and made them out of carbon steel and then had them zinc plated for corrosion resistance. Those vans are about 10k pounds and are 8 lug with diesel engines (read high torque). Stay away from aluminum in my opinion as it does have potential structural issues with heavier vehicles.