Wheel spacers

[Jon Wildsmith]

I run spacers on the green car and have not had any problems.

Those offset wheels on the red car are equivelent to 30mm spacers as well aren't they?

 

[Toby]

AFAIK there are two types of wheel spacer.

The ones to avoid use a screw-on extension piece on each or your existing wheel studs then a spacer ring which slips over these extensions. These seem to be known for giving problems.

The other type goes straight on your existing studs and provide a new set of studs to secure the wheel - if these are of reasonable quality they don't seem to suffer from the same problems.

If you use spacers to alter the effective offset of your wheels from the stock set-up, then you'll probably need to check, adjust and replace your wheelbearings more often. I'd imagine the further you go from stock the shorter the life of your bearings, all other things being equal.

I know Ian is using 30mm spacers to correct the 28mm positive offset Hilux rims on his car to (almost) match the zero offset spec for an 80.

To the OP: I'd avoid using spacers without a specific need to do so.

To Ben: I'd check your wheel bearings regularly with your nice looking new rims.

All the best,
Toby
1990 HDJ80
1994 HDJ80

 

[Ian Rubie]

Those offset wheels on the red car are equivelent to 30mm spacers as well aren't they?

Your memory is good, yes they were equivelent to 32mm spacers - again no problems. It left me on standard wheels with little baby 285/75R16 tyres fitted.

Ian

 

[Ben]

ive used wheel spacers on 4x4's in the past, but personally i think wheels with the correct off set and no wheel spacers is a better setup.

i havnt had any bearing problems yet, been on the truck about 8 months.

 

[Bounder]

90 and 80 series use different wheel bearing setups, 80 series is two tapered rollers, 90 series is single roller bearing, pressed into knuckle.

 

[Gary Stockton]

I'm running 30mm spacers from RoughTrax with no problems ... Other than KwikTwit stuffing up one set of studs...

 

[BobMurphy]

I used 'Scorpion Racing' wheel spacers on my Series III Land Rover. They were the type that bolted to the hub and had their own studs built in. They weren't particularly cheap as I recall. I got them from Chris Perfect Components.

This was necessary after I put 235/85/R16 Wildcat EXTs on it and still needed to turn corners .

I also had to fit wheel arch trims to keep it legal.

They were fine and I never had a problem with them.

mind you, the wheel bearings on Series Land Rovers are enormous .

Bob.

 

[chris lc90]

i use 30mm wheel spacers and never had any problem..and the use of the car is not normal for highways..but in hard conditions..almost every night jumps to hills and flows to rivers

and in greece we never hear any problem with broken wheel spacers for LC 90/95

 

[DaveWall]

I have 30mm spacers purly for looks if I'm honist guv....

No Bearing problems yet and done 50k miles on them!

They do effect the handling slightly - better in some situations, worse in others!

One positive is that if you do bugger up the wheel studs out in the wilds you can just whip the spacer off and attach the wheel or your spare if the wheelis bu&&ered too, to the orrigional studs on the hub......


I can only say that a wheel falling off is due to far more than just the spacer IMO....


Dave

 

[Chas]

I can only say that a wheel falling off is due to far more than just the spacer IMO....Dave

I used TBR wheel spacers on my 80 Landcruiser, not cheap nasty ones, they bolted to the hub and had their own studs built in. The Cruiser was maintained by Julian V and I think he knows what he's doing.
It's not the spacer that makes the wheels drop off, but the failed bearings that the spacers have put more strain on. It happened to me three times until I finally listened to Julian and removed them two years ago, since then no more problems and I'm still doing the same sort of driving , off-roading and overlanding, as far as I'm concerned it was the spacers caused the wheel-offs, so I'll never use them again.