Hi Guys,
Need some advice. I have seen some aluminum wheel spacers advertised and I am wondering if these are a good or bad thing. They say they can help with turning radius. Any thoughts?
Thanks!!!

 

There really is no safety guarantee with wheel spacers.

The fact is, you're putting more torque on wheel bearings as well as the wheel studs, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

I've heard some people have luck with them as well as a few horror stories of broken stock studs on the trails. I would just hate to see someone's tire passing them on the freeway!

 

If you want a tighter turning radius then just adjust your turn stops.
Look under the front of the truck, you will see 2 (one on each side) studs that go no where sticking out towards the wheel.
They are adjustable, those are your turn stops.
Be advised though if you adjust them to much your wheels will rub when you turn the steering wheel from lock to lock.

 

Stay away from wheel spacers, too many things to go wrong.

 

hey spike how much can I adjust my stops safely? I would love to be able to make u turns a bit tighter

 

different people say different things about wheel spacers... as long as they arent ridiculous like 3" spacers and you make sure you keep them torqued properly and dont jump things with your truck you should be fine... but every couple hundred miles you should remove your wheels and retorque the spacers... i little loctite wouldnt hurt either

 

Ive used Spacers on several vehicles of mine, the last time i used a set was on my 07 FJ Cruiser running 35" tires, they work great when used properly.
I have a lot of friends who use them and i have never heard of a failure due to the actual spacer only due to bad installation, and in that case it was not catastrophic failure only some bad balancing felt on the wheels.

Just make sure that you use locktite when adding the spacers, and make sure you re-torque the bolts after 500 miles or so, after that just inspect them once in a while.

If you can you might want to get spacers that are hub centric.

Oh yea and just like Discoxd said, stay away of 3" wide spacers, 1" or 1.5" should be fine.

 

Thanks everyone! I think i will stay away from the spacers since I just want to increase my turning ability. I did not know you could get that much out of just adjusting the stops....Why dont they just make them at the best turning radius to begin with?

 

I have no idea, you will have to trial and error that one.

 

Approx 1mm of adjustment will increase / decrease the turning circle buy 9.8" 's

You can fit shorter steering stops to a D2 that has 16" wheels from the factory, the vehicles with 18" wheels have longer lock stops fitted to accomodate the wider tyres.

The stops are either 23mm (short) or 29mm (long). Just measure them and see what you have, "some" 16" D2's left the factory with 29mm Lockstops and you can safely fit the shorter ones making the turning circle LOADS better, adjustments can be made to either by adding 1mm washers behind the spacers as some vehicles may require 25mm stops for example to stop the tyres rubbing the radius arms on full lock.