Forgive my stupidity, but What do Spacers do? and how do they work? Do you just add them to your wheel hubs, and use them to increase the Width of the road holding ability of your Trucks? Or is it purely Cosmetic?
Wheel Spacers, Guide for Dummys!
- Thread starter scubadec
- Start date
They are just bolted between the wheel and hub, they do help with stability and road-holding and they straddle sleeping policemen nicely, some people do add them for cosmetic reasonsscubadec said:
but beware, they increase the strain on your wheel bearings this is what has happened to me THREE times
even with regular servicing. The bearings break up and on mine melted the stub axle? you can see the bashing the wheel arch took as the wheel parted company with the car, I was doing 50 mph on the A3 when the front near-side wheel disappeared into the distance, amazingly I was still able to steer the Cruiser to the centre reservation, advised to remove them by Julian Voelcker 
and have had no trouble since.Chas
And that, folks, is how you put Dec off buying spacers with just one post! 
And saving him some £££ in the process!
Chas, that's scary stuff - I'm amazed you soldiered on with the spacers after the first time it happened! I hope Paul is reading this too - he was chuntering on about possibly adding spacers to his 80 for cosmetic reasons
And saving him some £££ in the process!Chas, that's scary stuff - I'm amazed you soldiered on with the spacers after the first time it happened! I hope Paul is reading this too - he was chuntering on about possibly adding spacers to his 80 for cosmetic reasons
Not strictly cosmetic reasons 
Will just give me better traction when recovering 120's, i hear they have troubles in the mud
Will just give me better traction when recovering 120's, i hear they have troubles in the mud
I hope so - I got mine from you!!!
;-)
BTW Chas, what width spacers were you running/have available??
;-)
BTW Chas, what width spacers were you running/have available??
i thought about using spacers but heard they aren't good for the bearings. what is the difference between using spacers and wheels with a greater offset? surely they put more strain on the bearings, but no one worries about those.
Spacers or offset wheels are the same as far as stress on the bearings goes. The benefit of doing it with wheels is you don't have an extra set of nuts to mess with. The benefit of doing it with spacers is you can take em off if you don't like them or use them with different wheels, or try different sizes. It's a good idea to lift each wheel off the ground and give it a wobble on a regular basis and that's more important if you're running spacers / offset wheels / big tyres as there will be a smaller margin for error. There should be no detectable play in the bearings, not even a tiny bit.
thanks jon.
i had a feeling they had the same effect.
i now set up my bearings with no play and have no trouble anymore. (touch wood).
when i used to set them as per advice from old school mechanics with a tiny amount of play, they seemed to rattle themselves loose rather quickly and destroy the bearing.
i had a feeling they had the same effect.
i now set up my bearings with no play and have no trouble anymore. (touch wood).
when i used to set them as per advice from old school mechanics with a tiny amount of play, they seemed to rattle themselves loose rather quickly and destroy the bearing.