Thanks Widewing! Yeah, aint worth gettin a nose bent over this stuff.. Just Bench wheelin, the BB equivelent of hangin out in the shop and havin a beer, or two or three.. BS'in about 4WD stuff... On topic. If I had even the remotest indication that the "fat guy" would break on me, when I needed him most? Yeah I'd throw his donut off the plane, with the wheel spacers in his pockets! LOL!
IMO, the brutal math of it is this. The wheel mounting flange is supposed to have only ONE thing mounted on it, the wheel! By adding the spacer, you've added another mechanical joint to the equasion, thus doubling the potential for failure... They can do all the engineering backflips they want, to try and minimize the added risk, but that extra joint, and added failure potential, is STILL there, when it WAS NOT before.. To me, that is not moving in a positive direction, equipment wise...
And guys that run auto repair shops see many thousands of vehicles.. See lots of things that will never make it into publications or statistics.. But they learn from all the others automotive maladies and problems.. Avoiding those same problems themselves!
all RC
yea......we should actually document what we see........
another thing everyone forgets, is that the suspension is designed for the vehicle. when you change
anything, even something as seemingly benign as the wheel mounting position, you are changing the suspension geometry.
when you move the mounting point of the wheel out even just an inch, you are going to increase the leverage of that wheels load on the suspension. this is a possibility of a failure.
you go from two different types of metal(which the engineers take into account with their torque specs on the wheel), to three different types of metal.
now, you have three different expansion rates, and three different contraction rates, all help in place by the very same lug nut/stud assembly. now, if, with the addition of these spacers, you were to add racing studs, and the "pass-through" racing style lug nuts, i supppose this could make up for that.
one of the most worst cases i've seen for changing suspension geometry, is on the ford f-150's. i've seen them with the stock wheels spaced out, and alignment set to specs......but they tear the tires up in less then a thousand miles.
i've seen them with bigger wheels(also throws off the suspension geometry) do the same thing. it also tears up the ball joints. the fords are the only ones i've seen
this bad though.
if you
really need to move the tire out a bit, then the two only viable options(in my mind) would be to 1) change both diffs out for wider ones. this can be crazy expensive, but if you're changing them anyway then go for it. obviously not gonna help on an independent suspension.
2) measure, caculate, and then do it twice more. then order the right wheels.
