Are Wheel Spacers Safe?
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- *If you run wheel spacers be sure that they are properly installed and are correct for your application. Check with your local government about the legality of using wheel spacers on your vehicle as well.*
I got a lot of flack over putting wheel spacers on my #FairmontProject. I understand your concerns, but I did my research and the wheel spacers I'm running will be perfectly fine in my application.
Here's the information from Maximum Motorsports on wheel spacers.
www.maximummoto...
Here are the wheel spacers I'm using. Remember they have been modified to be hub centric.
My Wheel Spacers: www.summitraci...
Long Studs: www.summitraci...
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Stay Dirty
ETCG1
I've been running 1" wheel spacers on one vehicle since 1982. I think that is time enough to prove they are not an issue.
Eric, for your own sanity, stop reading the comments. You will never please everyone.
If in a particular episode you happen to discover cold fusion, the key to immortality and invent a time travel machine all at once, someone will be unhappy about it.
I think you misinterpret this video. As a video producer you're always looking for new topics. The comments are a great place to find material that people are interested/passionate about. The more you feed the audience interest/passion, the more successful your channel will be. In short, I'm not trying to please everyone so much as make a living. Thanks for your comment.
Life's much better without reading, watching and hearing news, politics and arseholes. You can't change any of it or them and why would you want to, your not the mesiah. Fuck 'em, let them swill about in there gloomy world.
And this is the point where i think "why the &^&* am i sitting here reading the youtube comments?!?!?"...but yes, agreed, good comment sir.
You can't combine cold fusion with time travel you're a fucking idiot
Dr Brown proved you can stupid.
Yep it's a big close fitting washer with holes for the bolts, it will compress slightly and work fine.
People panic far too much.
Being concerned over something that could cause you to lose your life if you don't know a lot about how it works, is not an example of "panicking too much". It is the correct amount of concern or "panic" given the stakes.
Most people think they're unsafe because they've heard the horror stories of eBay spacers made of the finest chinesium installed by a backyard mechanic.
Chinesium! THAT'S AWESOME. I will start saying that.
I'm a backyard mechanic..... I never install chinesium, Ill just add washers to the studs between the hub and wheel.
@@TanTan-ni4mg I would def suggest NOT adding washers. That is dangerous and high probability of breaking your studs. It would created a higher torque in a vertical plane on the studs and snap them off.
I had ebay wheel adapters in past no issues
David Porcell on a car or a truck and did you ever take it off road.
I worked in tire and auto service till retiring in 2012. I generally took a very dim view on spacers, mainly because they were often too thick and not hub-centric. Eric, yours is one of the rare times where a modest spacer that is properly fitted is really appropriate.
I think it's safe as long as the bolts are long enough, and the tires properly aligned. Quality explanation as always Eric.
A lot can go wrong when people do wheel spacers badly. Wheel track, offset, suspension, steering, rotating balance, lug protrusion, centering and more. But on the flipside, Porsche have been factory fitting spacers for many years to increase rear wheel track depending tyre width and adhesion. Porsche know what they are doing. Countless race cars use spacers over 2 inches thick and enormously long studs/lugs. Then they fit a 13 inch wide tire and go circuit racing subjecting the assembly to huge load. Spacers are only dangerous if you have no idea what you are doing. Anyone getting bent out of shape over this minor spacer install clearly is just a repeater, repeating something they heard someone say somewhere.
ArchimedeanEye that's about all I coulda said on the topic. Dumb shits can fuck up any safe system
No system is idiot proof after all. But you nailed it dead on, its only when people who have no clue what they're doing attempt to use them that things get dangerous.
sparkplug1018 if you try and make something idiot proof, the world develops bigger idiots
ArchimedeanEye you nailed it if you don't know what you are talking about and you are just repeating what you've heard from other morons it doesn't make you any smarter.
ArchimedeanEye same as any modification done correctly it's safe
Hi Eric my name is Tony and I work at Discount Tire and one of the policies we have is that we will not service vehicles that have a free-floating spacer so what you've essentially done is taking your free-floating spacer and made it a non floating spacer the other reason we don't service wheel spacers is because the majority of the time we do not get the proper thread engagement for the lug nut to hold the wheel and by our policies 7 full turns or more is enough to properly hold your assembly to your vehicle when torqued correctly. If your spacer which is now hub-centric allows you to get at least seven full turns of thread engagement then I would consider that safe and I wish more people cared enough about their safety to do what you've done or not run wheel spacers at all. I hope this helps and good luck with the Mustang!
Thank you so much for posting a video, Eric! Your videos are one of the things I look forward to on UA-cam on a weekly basis.
I can absolutely understand Eric's frustration with some comments. Constructive criticism is one thing, but this is just ignorant bashing from people who heard that wheelspacers are "bad".
Theres one rule that probably applies to everything (even wheel spacers):
Everything can become dangerous when somebody bolts something together that he doesn't have any clue about ...
Keep going Eric, love your videos
greetings from germany
I think where a lot of concern that I saw was the fact that the original spacers were not hub-centric. I'm glad to see these ones are and that the wheel will center on the hub properly and nothing is going to move around (or have the slim ability to move around). Keep on keepin on Eric!
how are you gonna drive around with no seat, no motor, and no hood? Thats unsafe Eric, sheesh!
Cut a hole in the floor and go Flenstones style while sitting on a milk crate.
ETCG1 so you're saying it's going to drive better and be safer than the Scorpion crawler?
Shut up foo
@@ETCG1 great video 👍
I don't do any car work myself. How can I make sure that the shop I take it to will get the best part and do the work like you have shown ? Lexus is 350 F sport
Sheeeeeeeeeeesh
"No problem" says it all. I've used them on my earlier cars and never had an issue. Thanks for the video Eric, always good to hear from you.
Been running Hubcentric Wheel spacers on my Volvo 850 T-5R for 15 years because my brake calibers wont clear the Wheels NEVER had an issue
Where I've run into failure of wheel spacers was with one of the bolt-on style units that use their own studs. A friend of mine was tracking his car with r-comp tires on wheels that weren't the right offset to clear his front suspension, which necessitated spacers. That high amount of grip from the tires was causing the lugs to come loose after each session and they needed to be re-torqued each time. By some miracle the final session got cancelled. As soon as we got back on the road leaving the track, one of the wheels completely detached from the hub at around 40 mph and lodged itself into the fender well. The studs of the spacer had pulled through enough to completely come away from the spacer body itself. Had that happened on the race track mid-corner, we for sure could have risked flipping.
The lesson to be learned is, if you're going to run bolt-on spacers, make sure they're of sufficient quality and strength. Best case, don't run them on a car that'll see high sustained g-force from sticky tires.
Wheel spacers aren’t dangerous IF they are hub centric and the wheel is also hub centric. Also, I have seen 800HP drift cars with 2x 5cm rear wheel spacers stacked on each side! One of the downside is that the load on the bearings change and it can lead to more ware.
More wear I assume you mean. But with a quarter inch it's not going to do much difference, cornering puts more force on the bearings. I'd say that this video is wheel spacers done right for the right reason.
Used to watch you all the time back when you had videos in your old shop and I had my honda, now I find myself back again, this time with a jeep I've lifted and unfortunately looking to get wheel spacers to clear my UCAs. Not too excited about it but hearing you confirm it's safety makes me feel a lot better. Much respect for the all famous ETCG!
When I welded a Camaro sub frame on my 51 chevy truck I had quite a few experts predict massive failure soon. It's 28 years and a lot of miles on new England roads . All is well.
Relax and recharge, ETCG. I'm glad you're taking time off, get stuff done, be with your Family.
i have looked into spacers before. my GT4 came with 25mm spacers in the rear wheels, I removed them not because "spacers will kill you" but because the spacers i had were not hub-centric, my view is that if you have enough hub lip coming out its ok to use non-hubcentric spacers. personally, if i fit spacers in my car, i will have to buy hubcentric ones. which in turn cost a small fortune
THANK YOU BRUTHA FOR CLEARING THIS UP.
Nice job Eric, I appreciate you and all your hard work bringing us these videos. Keep up the good work, we love your channel.
There can be issues with non hubcentric spacers. They then rely on the studs/bolts to hold the wheel central on the hb. Most people don't realise this is done by the raised lip on the hub sitting in the hole in the centre of the wheel.
The other issue spacers can give is when the installer doesn't maintain suffiecient thread contact by not increasing the stud/bolt length.
I've just fitted 35mm thick hubcentric spacers to my Land Rover to give me increased steering angle.
The hubcentric version were a lot more expensive than the standard ones. Both sets come with fitted studs to maintain the standard stud length, but the hubcentric ones will keep the wheel located centrally on the hub.
And thanks for the birthday wishes. Much appreciated, although i'm a little concerned how you knew it was my birthday......
I use 2cm spacers on all 4 corners with longer bolts(not studs). No problems, no loosening, no vibrations
SpotterJacob what do you mean ‘bolts’?
I had an issue with wheel spacers on my dad's Volvo once. We had put on the snow tires which were on different rims then the regular wheels. We probably didn't line something up right, because about a week later one of the wheels came loose (we think because the spacer shifted). Nothing super bad happened though, the car started vibrating a bunch, so I pulled over and tightened the lugs. I don't think the spacers were hub centric, in fact, the place we bought the rims from had them already placed in the wheels.
Need a poster in the back of the shop, "ERIC YOUR DOING IT WRONG" - random youtube commenter.
It would read 'you're' not' your' though.
Agreed, fan of spacers, running steel wheels, longer studs , not tearing up pavement in the lowered c10 and never an issue.. good video.
Ive taken wheels off before and 10 washers fell on to the ground.
Thays what I always use
Hey guys I've been running spacers for 1 and half years. I ran 1 slip on hub centric 15mm and 1 bolt on spacer 20mm together! So that's 35mm double stacked hub centric only :P people kept saying it will fail but I've check numerous times and it didn't even get loose once. I was running +45 wheels offset and the spacers made the wheels poke about 1mm out of the guard and looks good. HOWEVER for my case I finally took the spacers off to get the oem look back and the handling feels so much better oem spec. This is from a performance standpoint. I think the spacers created more leverage on the shocks causing it to be more squishy. It also did pull the steering wheel a lot on dips in the road. Also i now have left and right play on my steering wheels but it drives fine. So I would say it does increase wear on suspension components. From my experience if I cared about performance I would not get them. If you want to do it for looks or clearance then go ahead. Again I ran double stacked spacers 15mm and 20mm for 1.5 years with no sign of suspension completely failing.(except for some play). If you watch formula drift cars in Japan they run 2 1 inch spacers double stacked. Is it safe = yes
They are totally not safe.
A guy threw one at me and those things really hurt!
would not have hurt if he threw it at you properly
Lasse Huhtala you are correct sir
Lol.
bruh. 😂🤣🤣
nice to see you still sharing your "space" with us dude.
Lets not forget the wheels and tyres episode where Eric discovers "these wheels aren't round!"
Tim Overton that's right there Square or is it triangle I can't remember
all the chevy, mopar, honda, and toyota guys secretly laughing out BuIlT FoRd ToUgH!!!
Not if you dont get there
100% agree! Used 1/4 inch Lug Centric behind alloys and got longer alloy lugs so the pass though the rim and into the spacer without bottoming out on the hub. 2 years no issues.
Living is dangerous! No one escapes alive.
Lol
Lolol!!!!! Nice
I use 1/4" wheel spacers for wheel clearance issues on my custom S10 that's still in the works but still drive it as often as I can, have not had any problems with the spacers at all, I just keep the torque in check every so often and worries. Thanks for sharing, great info
Hi I’m curious where did you find your wheel spacers cause I need pair for my c10 and having a hard time to find them are the are Hubcentric thanks
Plus those black painted steel rims. Unassuming look perfect for the sleeper. Better than fancy show-off rims for this
the second anyone gets close to that thing he loses the sleeper aspect as they will hear that beast of a motor idling under the hood
Jumped on to find something else but can't resist a new etcg1 video
If some armchair engineer can explain to me how using a spacer of reasonable thickness (like, 1" or less) is ANY different than using a different offset wheel to accomplish the thing, I'd LOVE to hear it.
The spacer argument is hilariously stupid (and old). As long as your studs or bolts are long enough they are fine.
Also, good quality spacers are key - not because of strength issues, but because of vibration issues. It's amazing what little imbalance caused from a crappy spacer can be felt.
Didn't know anybody was still working on those old Fairmonts anymore. Man a 2 door coupe was my first car. 3 spd. Inline 200 6 banger. Memories man. I bet I've had every configuration too. 2 door coupes, sedans, 4 doors, wagons, and even a Fairmont pickup. Tough little cars that was fun to make sleepers out of back in the day. Slap a 302 or 289 in it and man hold on. Surprised many a mustang years ago, and even jumped a railroad track once racing a Honda. He stopped we didn't. Other than being airborne and Damn near ripping the front bumper off little damage.
Now prepare for the butthurts claiming not using a torque wrench on your wheellstuds kills the ozone layer...
Dont know for his car but it significantly affects my brake discs. And it shakes if i dont use torque wrench. who would belive ha
e36 btw
Real men don't use torque wrenches, they just know when to stop 😉
cowards used their impact to tighen their wheel studs,real man used their rachet to tighten their wheel studs!
You got a remember it's usually human error when installing parts ..wheel spacers are safe when you properly do that ..I've had them on my truck never a problem..because they're properly installed.i'm also a mechanic glad you clarified that to the other people thank you💯👌
it makes me laugh a lot , everyone's an expert from behind their keyboard , if it works and it's been deemed to be safe by engineers who fabricate the parts then it's all good in my book .
Fast Lane Why are you so angry? What did commodore say that was so grevious to you? Are you ok, blink twice if you need help.
You're kind of full of shit considering you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Spacers get made en-masse by China, or regular joe shops. Even backyard mechanics go to their friends and have them machined.
And that's completely without touching on the fact that people are generally stupid and install them on cars that aren't meant to have such an extension.
IN short, so you get it through your thick head, by way of a comment, it's not the spacer itself that's the break point, rather the levering action it has on the suspension or studs or both.
People will make anything to make money, they dont care if it is safe.
Not saying wheel spacers are safe or unsafe.
I never heard that a spacer damaged a car in any way or form... Good video and 100% correct
I liked the part where Maximum engineers said it was good.. after how many times has Eric had to modify the components to make them fit.
Once upon of time I had a 75 Chevy Monza 2+2 V8 with a 4 speed. Of course, being young and dumb in some areas (actually a lot of areas), I decided to use some wheel spacers to try and improve my cornering capability by widening the track and to get a bit better wider wheel stance to decrease body roll in corners.. They were quarter inch spacers so it increased the track by 1/2 inch. It made the car look a little better, but really It did not improve the performance in any noticible way except I could now install snow chains on the rear in the winter. The down side was the leverage on the front suspension. It put extra leverage on the front suspension to the point it was bottoming out much more often and hitting the bump stops much harder. It was enough force that it allowed the bottom of the oil pan to come in contact with the pavement on passing through some higher crowned intersections. The unintended result was one day the oil pan got dented a little bit and the lip of the drain plug came in contact with the ground at about 35 mph and was instantly unscrewed. The oil soon drained out and I got a red light on the dash for oil pressure. Shut off the engine and coasted to a stop. After walking around the car and seeing the oil trail, I saw the last of the oil dripping out of the drain hole. I walked Back to the intersection, found my drain plug, put it back in and took a long walk to a store to buy replacement oil to put back into the crankcase. After I got back home, I took off the front wheel spacers and my bottoming out problem almost went entirely away. That was one of my first solid clues that there was more to suspension performance than fat performance tires and stiff shocks.
wheel spacers.. have we got clearance Clarence ??.. ( airplane RIP leslie neilson)
888johnmac Roger, Roger
Respect you alot. Been watching you for a couple years. Im an aging diesel tech for over 20 years. 50 in a few months. You do speak the truth.. take care
I'll be there with birthday wishes. Thanks for the comment.
If you were a real car guy you would ghost ride that thing!
What is ghost riding ?
I'm going to have to push it fast enough first.
HaHa Eric, love that! Say Eric, I would be honored to pull you if you're itching to roll it down the road! Stay dirty and have a great vacation!
Eric ? What are you doing here ? Please disconnect for a while and come back fresh in a few weeks (just kidding - so cool to chat with you)
By the way I still don't know what ghost riding means... I think I missed HumbleMechanic's joke
Garage, Bagnoles et Rock'n Roll Look up Mac Dre, or SF Bay Area Hyphy movement 😂
It was a trend from a while back basically letting the car roll in gear with the engine on while you do stupid 💩 like dancing on the hood or roof or walk beside your driverless car.
Eric, I can say, that if those rims are 17 inch Crown Victoria P71 Interceptor rims, you shouldn't have to worry. I own a 2007 Crown Victoria P71 Interceptor, and it has the stock 17 inch steels on it, and they are solid. Those rims have taken me throwing my 4,300 lb car into some really wild maneuvers, whilst transferring the weight without allowing the car to slip.
German wheel brand RH provides inch thick adapters with certain wheels models from factory.
If they would not be safe they would not make it that way.
Everybody knows the Germans make good stuff.
Eric, something that neither you nor the linked article addressed is that moving the tire farther away from the hub increases the load on the wheel bearing. Admittedly in your case, 1/4" isn't much and will probably never cause a problem. But I do regularly see jacked up pickups at my shop with 2" spacers and heavily offset wheels going through bearings much faster than usual.
There are far more of us that support you Eric then the nay Sayers
Too many people think they know more than they do due to limited experience... Do your thing Eric you will be fine!
Putting too wide a spacer on the hub can cause premature bearing-wear but I can't see why they'd be problem otherwise as long as they are installed properly.
This isn't a spacer issue, it's a wheel width/scrub radius/steering axis inclination problem. The mechanical forces that drive scrub radius and make the steering excessively heavy are the same mechanics that wear out wheel bearings. I can promise you the weight of adding a bearing will not cause the bearing damage but the change in leverage against the wheel bearing caused by a wheel that has a contact patch way outside what the factory intended it to be. Doesn't matter if a spacer is there or not.
As long as the scrub radius is close to factory it doesnt matter.
I still don't think this matters, within reason, since adding a spacer adds no more moment arm to the bearing than a wheel with equivalent offset. Most manufacturers use the same bearing across all their submodels, no matter which wheel it is equipped with, and many of those offsets vary greatly. (Example: Audi A4 vs. RS4 - same bearings/hubs, but the RS4 wheels stick out way more - in fact, the fender flares even have to be wider on the RS4).
If you put some ridiculous 3" spacer on or something, sure, I could see your point. But most people are probably in the 10-20mm range when using spacers.
A wheel with a lower offset will do the same thing...
I added a 7.5 lift on my Ford Excursion, then added on 37's on it, but after I finished up with the job my front tires would always rub when I turned. Always wondered if I had to down size my tires, but after watching this vid I am going to look at spacers. Thanks for the Vid!
I highly doubt you'll track it hard enough to "flex" those wheels. Though cheap and mass produced, those wheels were engineered for extreme police duty and they've been crash tested. Keep the sleeper look, black steelie are cool anyways!
J Scott No, he's right. We had hell keeping hubcaps on the only P71 that came with hubcaps in our fleet. The Fleet Commander finally gave up and replaced them with center caps.
@@231mac That has less to do with flex and more the fact that some dumbass ordered a fleet prowler with PLASTIC HUBCAPS. Whether steel, alloy or aluminum, an ABS plastic cover is going to fly away or get chewed up real quick in fleet use.
Just keep in mind for every 10mm of wheel spacer you need to increase the wheel bearing load capacity by 150% as the wheel moves further away from bearing the loads on bearing go up exponentially to the point of 25mm spacer requires bearing with over 2 x (200%) the load capacity.
Biggest danger with vehicles is the loose nut behind the wheel.
The number one thing that most don't do when modifying a car is research. I feel like there should be a video on how to research this kinda stuff so my friends can quit asking me to look stuff up, lol. Thanks for clearing this up Eric, I'll make sure the rest of my buddies watch this so they quit trying to fight with me over this topic
Hence the reason I made the video. No one reads anymore anyway.
I still do Eric, can't wait to see the Fairmont when its done
has anyone taken apart a ford f250. f350 4x4. the front hubs have like a massive 4inch wheel spacer that bolts to the rotor and the wheel bolts on to it.. for real .. research it
It's properly installed because a master mechanic is installing. Keep up the good work etcg
I run 2" Wheel Spacers and 32"" Tires on my Bronco they have help up just fine over a years worth of daily driving and beating the shit out of it 4 buying as well.
TRX VLOGGER Hey, are yours hubcentric?..I want to put 2 inch spacers on my old wagoneer..I'm putting m715 style flares on it and want to use the original narrow wheels and narrow mud tires just to give it a wider stance.
He's correct in that thread engagement is very important. If the bolts have enough thread left after adding the spacers, then it's safe to use them.
Be the 1st car to cross the finish line without a driver. Should we call you Ricky Bobby !
I have had 1/4 in wheel spacers on my Mustang for 20+ years, I needed them for clearance between the tire and quad shocks, they are not Hub Centric but have never caused a wheel to come loose or been any problem. At one time I had installed a pair of the aluminum space saver spare wheels on the front of my car and had to use 1/2 in spacers so the wheels would clear the brakes and had no problems, they were for driving to the dragstrip and back but were also driven on the street. Those narrow tires and wheels did not corner very well but that had nothing to do with the spacers. Back in the 80's I had a set of spacers the went from a ford bolt circle to a chevy bolt circle and those did end up with slight cracking in them between the studs but the material being used today is much better than what was being made back then. I would not but used spacers that have studs in them, get a new set instead of saving $5.
Who's this guy? ETCG is not on youtube anymore, he made a video saying he wasnt making anymore video's. I call shenanigans.
Lisa Lowery he had lots of footage, still to release, but nothing after that, I believe.
Lisa Lowery shenanigoats
He stated that etcg1 had a video or 2
you shoudl have listen to the video, he said we was taking a break from the ETCG channel but the ETCG1 would still get a video or 2
and that he would still release just not regularly he's going on holiday with his family has a new project to work on. and has a GIANT backlog of footage to edit for future stuff should he FEEL like it
I'll take today's happy birthday as an early wish for mine tomorrow. So thanks for the warm wishes Eric.
Happy birthday!
You're a class act, Eric.
the haters dont know about engineering eric
Like you said as long as the spacer is installed correctly there will be no problem. One other thing to consider is that the inner and outer surfaces are machined parallel. If they are not then you might have a problem. But for the most part they are done with a high degree of accuracy
Great video. I think most of your viewership will appreciate this one (or at least they/we should!). Stay dirty.
ty, i have a liberty 06, and I am lifting it 2,5 and spacing stock wheels 1.25in out and I was afraid, now I will make sure that they are hub centric, and most important installed correctly. Thank you, God Bless.
Eric has made a career of bolting shit together and making sure it stays that way. I think he's got this. What the keyboard safety police forget is that the same lack of maintenance that makes wheels WITH spacers dangerous would make ANY wheel dangerous.
I have 1.25" hub centric spacers on my Tacoma which are the more extreme one Eric mentioned with their own studs. I bought them from a very reputable company.(Spidertrax) They came with great instructions on mounting them correctly, using locktite, and torque specifications. I would never buy such a critical part on Ebay.
Oh shit it actually is my birthday!!!!
Happy birthday!
Andrew Allen how ols are yu🎂🍰
Dually trucks use very large wheel spacers on the front axle from the factory to change the offset to allow the same rims to be used on the front and rear axles. If properly engineered and installed they are perfectly fine.
If you are able to break those studs (with or without the spacers installed,) then you are probably in a crash, and aren't thinking about the studs and spacers anyway. ;-)
Or have a stuck caliper and seriously overheated the studs till they turn blue and red for the remainder of their brittle lives... Happened to me a few times when I absolutely had to get somewhere.
Of course they break when you have important things to do, or when you are in the middle of nowhere at 2:00am, with a deadline 4 hours away! ;-)
I had studs break and cause..well not a crash but a major inconvenience on the highway. no spacers or anything. Best guess is 2 or 3 lugs loosened and the rest snapped do to the unbalanced loading. No spacers, just a big heavy steel wheel.
I bet at least a few of them saw the video from Engineering Explained, he covered this but he was talking about 3 or more inch spacers. Its not that much spacing and you are doing it safe. Keep up the videos.
Today's my birthday! It's 6am my time and someone tried stealing stuff from inside my car. Good thing they didn't take anything. Plus it doesn't help that I have a 4 day old newborn baby keeping me up.
Happy birthday!
Edgar Dominguez happy birthday
ETCG1 thanks much needed!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy birthday to you and the 4 day old newborn !!!
AGREED .... the physics does NOT change. The wheels bearings are NOT stressed.
That wheel spacers is either going to be a seperate entity from the wheel OR it will be added to the wheel during build process.
The only difference is that that "25mm" spacer you just put in is now seperate and sandwiched between the wheel and hub and now its torqued IN and torqued ONTO by the wheel ...
The concern is getting a well built spacer with quality parts ...
Seen a lot of stuff about spacers causing wheel bearing issues. In reality, I've no evidence that wheel spacers wreak wheel bearings any more than wheel bearings normally wreak themselves.
But armchair mechanics gonna armchair.
The key is that your wheel spacers have been modified to be hub-centric. I find it interesting that you've done that, as prior to watching this video, I'd only heard of the term with regards to BMWs. Good job Eric!
Good golly! He's using an impact wrench to put the lug nuts on!!!! What about proper torque!!! Run away!!!!!
Hey Eric, I was just reading your Agugst 2017 newsletter. And let me tell you, everything is fine! I don't expect anything from you, and you take everything as slow or as fast as you need to! Nonetheless, I am of course excited to see the Fairmont run and how it runs, but that can wait. If you decide that your personal life and your family are more important right now, I will happily wait another year or two (or however it may take you to get things sorted out) before there are any ETCG videos again. Just focus on what's most important in life for you now, and then follow that path, because that's what it is all about! You can always figure out later how to make money out of it...
i thought he quit youtube?
You might want to rewatch that video because I never said that. ua-cam.com/video/phfKqS4HmdU/v-deo.html
I'm running 20mm per side in the front of my car.
Had a set of multi-stud alloys and they did fit except of the offset. They were before fitted on BMW and now it's on a Lexus.
Basically my setup is 20mm hub centric spacer + spigot ring for the alloys to stay hub centric.
Additionally I installed longer studs and adjusted the torque.
So far everything is fine, the car looks great too and I don't have a soft driving style and some of the backroads have potholes and nothing so far.
As said, if properly installed, things will be fine.
I saw people putting on hub centric spacers but then the wheels itself were not center - one pothole with force and that was it - especially on only 4-stud wheels.
You really need to ignore the armchair experts Eric they really have no clue what they are talking about.
I hear ya, but it makes for good video topics wouldn't you agree?
i used to use half inch spacers and spacer stud extenders with no problems
for 30 years plus on the british mini also used to use belted rims keep up the good work eric
Step 1: Put spacer on car
Step 2: Put tire on car
Step 3: Tighten lug nuts
How in the world can you improperly install spacers to make it dangerous?
Easy. Spacers of poor material can break/crack. Spacers too thick can cause insufficient lug nut purchase. Spacers can increase track to the point where the suspension no longer functions as intended. Large spacers can lead to premature wheel bearing failure. Spacers can lead to improperly centered wheels. Spacers can lead to an imbalanced rotating assembly. Spacers can cause tires to touch the body/frame at full lock.
Eric's install has all of those areas covered.
The way you did those adapters is 100% safe. And I love the steel wheel look.
My '77 F250 is painted to look like a Hotwheels (tm) and in order to complete the look I bought a set of Dodge RAM 2500 five-spoke wheels. The challenge was that the offset of the Dodge is completely different, so to correct the offset I tried to order spacers from my local parts store (I think they're 1.5 inch). They would not order them, insisting that they would not be safe on a 3/4 ton truck, and that my bearings would wear out faster making it unsafe in a completely different way. I tried to explain that not correcting the offset would wear out my bearings, and he told me to change the wheels. Finally ordered the 8 bolt spacers (they bolt to the hub and have their own 8 lugs for the wheel) from an online place that sells to rockcrawlers and now my truck drives in a straight line on the highway. It also doesn't rub when I make sharp turns.
Man I haven't been to your channel in a long time, man your picture quality is top notch these days. Always enjoy your vids. Keep up the good work👌
We've used spacers on an SK Modified that lives its life on a track. Never have we had an issue with them, even in a wreck the spacers come out just as they did going in. To reiterate the main point here - They properly set themselves in position on the hub and the lugs are torqued properly. Now that it's all secured, the hub, spacer, and rim are all one assembly, you'll rip the entire assembly clean off the car before you have issues with the spacer.
@etcg1, my only concern about those specific hub spacers, is that the hole for the studs to pass is oval, and not a tight fit around the studs. Now hear me out. The way the wheel is clamped to the original rotor hub, there is no voids in the metal, meaning full contact at the pressure point, or circle, under where the lug nut presses the wheel to the hub. If the contact point is not a full circle, then the clamping forces are not even, and can loosen when the wheel flexes. If those rings were drilled with a round hole, that fit the stud perfectly, then the clamping forces could be even and transfered to the hub fully. I am ASE master certified, and also TIA certified and a master diagnostic technician. Over 15 years in the shop, and have seen that specific ring have torque issues with some wheels. Just check torque often, and consider a set of rings specifically drilled for your application.
I've had 1.25" Spacers on my built for off road Bronco II for five years 32" tires street, 33" tires off road, both Cooper, if that matters. The B2 is also my daily driver. So far I've had no problems, including undue wear of the wheel bearings. Dana 35 TTB front, FORD 8.8" disc rear. FYI, driver's side make sure to add a drop of blue lock tite to the spacer threads and to the wheel nuts threads. Beyond that, enjoy the wider stance. I would imagine you can add to big of a spacer at some point, but the 1.25" spacer with it's own lug nuts, works great.
Thank you for your comment. I am getting ready to add 1" spacers to my 2001 xterra due to the offset of new rims being +25 mm, but will also run original rims with offset of +0 that will have winter tires on them. The winter tires will sit out 1" more during the winter months.
The wheel spacer and the center ring are safe to use as long they are design for that vehicle / wheels. After install a wheel spacer you can do a test and check the torque of the bolts after running some miles specially when you force the vehicle into curves.If the spacer is not proper desing you will loose the clamp load of the bolt.
Also need to make sure the center of the wheel is not afected and there is plenty of thread engagement for the stud.
Read an interesting discussion on a forum recently that stated for hubcentric rings to be effective , they would have to be a press fit on the hub. The discussion was not about using spacers, it was about using wheels with a greater cylinder bore size than the original ( 56 mm instead of 54.1 mm ). The consensus was that a wheel with a slightly larger cylinder bore could be safely used, provided that the wheel nuts were torqued correctly. It is the PCD that is critical to centralising the wheel.
This video implies that for a spacer to be installed safely, the spacer must be hubcentric, though Eric doesn't directly say that.
My view on this is that it is not a safety issue, but it is convenient to have the spacer centred on the hub, to facilitate doing up the wheel nuts. Centralising the spacer is important however, as it could unbalance the wheel, as the spacer is not centralised due to the PCD of the wheel and wheel studs.
Although I'm against modifying any vehicle from stock. I used to work where we did addons to jeeps, canister relocation, lift kits, bumpers, wenches lights etc. Iagree with you 100%
I do have a few horror stories, 1 was washers for wheel extenders.
I have learned more from the Fairmount Project that I could list - fantastic series - thanks Eric!
The photo of the bolt-on spacer that you showed, the one with the nice Sparco name brand on them.. yeah pretty sure if these were unsafe, a company as massive as Sparco wouldn't be selling them! I run 1.5 inch spacers all around on my mazda 3gt daily driver, and for 2 years now there has been zero problems with them. Thank you for your video, I might just put a link in my comment section to your video
I am sure Eric you know what you are doing you are the expert and have been doing it for a while.
1/4" in car assembly is known as shimming, and it's a perfectly normal amount to shim by. It would be different if you were running say a +1" spacer with only a few threads left to put the lug nut onto, so what you're doing in your case is perfectly fine and well within tolerance. The most unsafe thing about spacers is how much they reduce the threads by. If you use open ended lug nuts you will normally have several threads unused on the outside on the nut, and if using a spacer means there are still threads left free after the lug nut is on, you're all good. The other thing with using too big of a spacer is that it increases bearing load due to increasing force (moving wheel centre further out increases leverage). 1/4" will be in tolerance still. All in all, wheel spacers are only bad if they're too large, simply shimming by an amount such as 1/4" for fitment is not an issue.