Questions about Wheel spacers for a truck

A friend asked me about making spacers to make the front wheels on his

4wd pickup truck sit farther out. He is running non-standard, steel wheels on the truck. The wheels are 8 lug, on a 6 1/4" bolt circle. The lug nuts look like the standard lug nuts with the conical face toward the wheel. Before diving into a project like this, a few questions came up:

How do steel wheels locate to the hub? Do they locate on the lug bolt/nuts? Do they locate on the hub in the center of the bolt circle?

Would 6061 T6 be suitable for making a wheel spacer? The spacer will be about 0.6 thick, and the lugs are long enough to pull up with plenty of space.

Thanks in advance, BobH

Reply to
BobH
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If it is a "sandwich" spacer with long studs, 6061T6 is plenty good enough. The wheels are stud-centric, but having an accurate hub center shure doesn't hurt - I'd make the spacer fit snugly on the exixting axle stub, with an accurately centered stub on the spacer, with the holes for the stud a snug fit over the studs - so the studs are supported by the spacer, and the wheels centered by both studs and wheel center.

Reply to
clare

This is pretty much what I had in mind. Thanks, BobH

Reply to
BobH

Have you looked at buying them off the shelf? They used to be much cheaper than you could make them for.

Reply to
800L

Depending on how far you want to space them out:

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$6.50 for 1/4 inch to $130 for a pair of 3 inch.

At least the original poster can see some pictures of how it is being done commercially...

Reply to
Leon Fisk

+1. Especially for a truck, I'd want to have the extra strength from that center support, rather than relying on only the stud strength, when going through deep ruts with a full load in a 4WD scenario.

I've always been wary of those centerless, elongated-hole adapter plates for aluminum mags.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I had L50 x 15 Crager SS Mags on the back of my old El Camino. They used a universal aluminum adapter plate, 5 long lug nuts. Anyway I got into a fender bender where I guy ran into the side of me pulling out of a parking lot. Most of the damage was on the front-left corner but some how it caught the Mag and bent the rear axle. New rear axle, re-mounted the Mag (with a slight ding in it) with all the old hardware. It all ran smooth again...

Reply to
Leon Fisk

Cheap in the USA, but not so cheap by the time you get them up to Canada - and not cheap from Canadian suppliers in my experience. If you need more than half an inch, don't have long enough studs, or are changing bolt patterns- BUY.

Reply to
clare

They are fine for a show vehicle - not so good for a GO vehicle.

Reply to
clare

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