Opinions on wheel spacers

91stranger · Feb 11, 2019

So I'm looking at spacers in case I want to put my mustang wheels on my truck. I see everyone has had to add some sort of spacer to make it work. I want to know what the best bet is for this. I know I would need the actual bolt on adapters that you mount on the lug nuts then you mount the wheel to the adapter. I've seen people use washers for spacers to get a little extra width. Anyone have any suggestions as to what works and what doesn't work? The washer I see causing issues as well as the adapters. Any input would be helpful before I spend the money.

Ranger850 · Feb 11, 2019

I've seen the washers work just as good as the spacer plates. The concept and science is the same no matter the application. Once the wheels are to torque specs, everything should be fine. Maybe more experienced headz will chime in on this ...

adsm08 · Feb 11, 2019

I'm not a fan of wheel spacers in general, but if I had to use one I'd get the one that bolts down to the hub and then the wheel bolts to it.

alwaysFlOoReD · Feb 11, 2019

Any washers I have are never the same thickness. I'd be worried that there would be stress from uneven thickness of washers.
I run a 2" spacer on the rear of my race truck. Not a lot of miles so far but seem to be working fine. When I mounted them I found a bunch of the studs broke when torquing them down. I replaced all the studs on all 4 corners.

snoranger · Feb 11, 2019

I ran Eibach 1.5" wheel adapters on all 4 corners of my '89. Don't be cheap, get a brand name. I pulled the wheels after 1000 miles and found they had loosened up. I used blue locktite, retorqued them, and never had another issue. Trust me, I abused them. I probably ran them for 50-60k miles.

Ranger850 · Feb 11, 2019

The washers we used were stainless steel flat washers 1/9" thick stacked 4-6 deep on the rears of a tricked out civic hatch back, so the rims would clear the drums

retep88 · Feb 11, 2019

I ended up using these Spacers from amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FD6FASM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have a 2000 ranger and needed the 1.25 inches to get 2014 rims on the truck. I would vote for some thing hubcentric. Using spacers that are lug centric make me nervous.

alwaysFlOoReD · Feb 11, 2019

I don't remeber if mine were hubcentric. If I remember next time I'm at my storage I'll look.

sgtsandman · Feb 11, 2019

If you go with spacers, I would make sure they are hub centric and the lugs for them are separate from the lugs for the wheels (assuming they are thick enough to not properly engage the threads with the factory lugs). Make sure you thread lock the nuts on the spacers. People have had problems in the past with nuts working loose under the wheels and broken lugs from non hub centric spacers.

91stranger · Feb 12, 2019

See, this is the info I wanted. I was a littler nervous about the washers as well incase some were machined slightly off or something. I was looking at the adapters with their own lugs. Good to know about the blue Loctite as I wouldn't have even thought about it. --SnoRanger- glad to hear that they can with stand 50K+ miles of abuse and not just basic daily driving. I just want to change the stance on the truck and I do have some nice mustang wheels I could put on if I felt like swapping those wheels off the non running mustang and put the stock mustang wheels back on. Now does anyone know if the stock ranger lug nuts (the ones that hold the center caps on) will fit in the spacers hole? I'm fine with buying new lug nuts if I need the small ones I just wanted to know before hand. Thanks again.

Uncle Gump · Feb 12, 2019

Why not just save a little money over the cost of the adapters and just buy wheels that fit with less back spacing?

I know there are success stories... but there are horror stories too.

I personally am not a fan and never will be.

snoranger · Feb 12, 2019

No, those lug nuts won't fit. They are too wide and too deep.

Actually, they held up to way more mileage then that... I kept the adapters when I junked the first truck I had them on ('89 Ranger w/ '99 Cobra wheels) and put them on my next truck ('01 Ranger w/ '04 Cobra wheels) for 70k more miles. That one didn't see as much abuse... It was mostly just commuting 80 miles a day.

I still have them, just in case.

91stranger · Feb 12, 2019

snoranger said:
No, those lug nuts won't fit. They are too wide and too deep.

Actually, they held up to way more mileage then that... I kept the adapters when I junked the first truck I had them on ('89 Ranger w/ '99 Cobra wheels) and put them on my next truck ('01 Ranger w/ '04 Cobra wheels) for 70k more miles. That one didn't see as much abuse... It was mostly just commuting 80 miles a day.

That's awesome. I remember I bought some a long time ago to put on my 91 when I had it but I ended up selling that truck and all the goodies I had for it like those adapters. Wish I would have kept them but that's life. Do you remember what brand you bought? I've been looking at the billet aluminum ones about 1-1.5 inch spacing each.

8thTon · Feb 12, 2019

There’s an awful large difference in strength between machined aluminum and forged steel hubs. Not a big deal if it’s just sandwiched between the wheel and hub, but if the studs are mounted in it.......

Shran · Feb 12, 2019

No way in hell would I ever run washers. The wheels are lug centric, yes, BUT, the friction fit between the wheel and the brake rotor/drum is part of what keeps the wheel attached. You lose that with washers.

FWIW I have had 1" adapters on my rear axle for about 10 years because I wanted to run 5x5.5 bolt pattern wheels to match my Dana 44 front axle... I just used cheapo adapters from Amazon or eBay. Worked great, probably have 10-20k on them. I retorque them whenever the wheels are off but none of the lug nuts have ever loosened up. These things are totally safe as long as you keep them torqued down.

If you use real thin spacers you may have to shorten your lug studs.

Opinions on wheel spacers

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