Does anyone here use wheel spacers?

[Ford008]

SoNic67, you are partially correct in your statements; Yes, a spacer will increase torsional stress on the studs/lug nuts, wheel bearings and ball joints if you use them to change the 'stock' offset (as the manufacturer designed it), like using the OE wheels and a 1.5" spacer. It is the same as running a wider wheel with the same or less backspacing as a stock wheel (which people do all the time).

Now, if you use a different wheel, like the OP has, with more backspacing but use a spacer equal to that difference, those forces are not changed (as long as everything else stays the same). You are saying it will increase the load on the original studs/nuts, but as far as they are concerned, the centerline of the wheel (offset) and it's leverage hasn't changed at all, and the load on the wheel's new studs/nuts (again, leverage) hasn't changed from what it was originally designed for. This is a -1" on the wheel, +1" on the wheel mounting surface, and that = 0.

The ball joints and wms don't experience a difference either, because as they see it, they two changes (-1+1) cancel each other out (still equals 0) so the leverage placed on them from the wheel is still the same as it was with the OE wheel.

Soo, if everything stays the same in relation to the wheel CL and the bearings/joints, there are no additional loads or 'torque' as you call it. The CL of the wheel is still in the same place as it was originally, the distance from the CL to the wms is still the same and the 'new' wheel is still bolted on to the same place as it was on it's original car.

The only thing we are adding into this equation is the spacer itself...how strong is it and does it have quality studs?? MercuryMullet has experience with the some of the cheap Chinese studs (sorry Bro!), LOL!

 

[Ford008]

Was chatting with MercuryMullet about this and I thought of the perfect example of how increasing the BS but running a spacer puts everything right back where it was...the front of a dually.

I converted my truck to DRW by using spacers, ~4" in the front and ~3" in the rear. The rear is a completely different subject as it does increase the leverage on the wheel bearings, but in the front it kept everything in the same place as it was when it was a single rear wheel. Dually wheels have ~4" more back spacing (OE 16x7 Alcoa has ~3.5" and the dually wheels are 16x6 and ~7.5" bs). Factory DRW front hubs do the same thing as the spacers do (I have a pair I'm planning to install in the near future). If this was detrimental to the wheel bearings, I don't think every manufacturer of DRW trucks would be doing it.

 

[MercuryMullet]

http://performanceunlimited.com/illustrations/wheelbearings.html

This is from a bearing website. It not only states that the tires themselves don't wear out the bearings it the adverse conditions (off-roading, hitting curbs etc) but it shows a graph of leverage on the bearing and it's effect. It only uses center off tire and outside of the tire to calculate the added stress.