Stock wheels and lug nuts

[banman12]

Question for the wheel guru's:

I purchased a nice set of hubcentric 1.5" wheel spacers for the OEM wheels. I run Methods and Toyo's in the summer months and love the 0mm offset. Decided to plastidip the stock wheels and add the wheel spacers for the winter months.

Usually the stock wheels are hubcentric on the hub, but now the spacer is hubcentric and the OEM wheel is essentially "lugcentric", if you will. Are the stock lug nuts acceptable to use in this application, or do I need to be using an aftermarket set? I do have the gorilla set that came with my Methods and was contemplating using those. Any suggestions?


To be more specific, the spacers fit right onto the hub where the stock wheel would normally sit. The spacers themselves do not have a "hub" or a lip, if you will, for the wheel to sit on.

Here is a link to the spacers I bought:
6x135 - 1.5" - 1 Pair Wheel Spacers


I'm debating sending these back and getting something like this:
Ford F150 6 X 135 - 14mm X 2 Stud/Nut

What do you guys think?

 

[banman12]

Anyone?

 

[BAJASVT]

I just glanced at both spacers, but what is the difference? They appear to be the same to me. The only difference I see is that the link from prowheeladapters shows the acorn style lugnuts that will attach the spacers to the truck on the spacer studs, which is not where they'll be used... I'm assuming they just did that for the photo.

 

[banman12]

The ones I have sit on the hub and then are tightened, so they are hubcentric. But then they don't have a lip that is the same hub size as the wheel. Therefore, the wheel itself is technically just held on by the studs and lugs.

 

[Wheel & Tire Dist.]

To get a good fitment you want adapters to be hub centric to the truck and then hub centric to the wheel. If it is only hub centric to the truck & not the wheel you run a good chance of getting vibration at high speeds. I have never liked wheel adapters but if had to do it definitely hub centric. I hope that helps TJ

 

[banman12]

Yeah that's the difference between the two... I wish I looked a little harder at them before ordering to realize they werent hubcentric to the wheels. Looks like their going back. The stance with the spacers is perfect though.

 

[whoisbigman]

I have an enormous amount of experience with this on SuperDutys... original wheels are hubcentric, wheel is centered on hub, uses a flat backed nut because wheel is perfectly centered on hub.

Some (most) aftermarket wheels and spacers are lugcentric and when you place them on truck, they have some wiggle room. If you used your factory lugnuts, it could be off center. You use acorn style aftermarket nuts which center the wheel on the bolt pattern for these. If you have no center cap on wheel you should see a perfectly even space around hub against wheel.

You have hubcentric spacers so use factory lugnuts to put spacer on truck, then factory wheels will need aftermarket acorns to hold them centered on spacers.

Your stock wheels are not ideal for this but it's all you can do otherwise you wont be round and in balance.

Or get hubcentric spacers inside and outside of spacer....

...or don't use spacers because they suck and are a weak point in the whole setup and a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[justvettn]

I see you bought 1.5 inch spacer, is that what it takes to bring a stock wheel to 0 off set.
What makes the spacer cause a weak area?

 

[BAJASVT]

I see you bought 1.5 inch spacer, is that what it takes to bring a stock wheel to 0 off set.
What makes the spacer cause a weak area?

I'm not sure about the F-150, but I've used these spacers on a Ranger before. I had to use 1.5" because the OEM studs were just shorter than 1.5". If the spacer was any thinner than 1.5", the OEM studs would protrude through the spacer and the wheel hub surface wouldn't be able to sit flat on the new spacer hub surface. There is an option to run thinner spacers, but you need to grind down your studs or replace them with shorter studs.

A lot of people criticize these spacers for being weak and adding more leverage to your unsprung tire/wheel weight to wear out your suspension and wheel bearings faster. The wear claim I agree with, but it's no different than running an aftermarket wheel with less backspace. The strength part I have yet to experience any issues with first hand, but the Ranger I ran 1.5" spacers on had a Dixon Bros. LT suspension and it was jumped like a **** and the spacers were just fine... and they were just the lug centric style.

The OEM Raptor wheels have 6.09" backspace and most of the aftermarket wheels use 4.75". If you use a 1.5" spacer on an OEM wheel, your tire/wheel combo is going to sit outboard just a little less than a 1/4" more than where say a Method would.

To the OP, like whoisbigman said, a hub centric spacer is going to be "better" than a lug centric spacer if all else is equal. A lot of these spacers are cranked out in little machine shops and might not have good tolerances and quality control. With that said, a well machined lug centric spacer could be better than a poor hub centric. Like I said, I had lug centric spacers and put ~50-60k miles on them and never had any vibrations up to 100mph with 32x11.50 Goodyear MTR w/ Kevlar tires on a Ford Ranger.

Good luck.

 

[banman12]

Thanks for the input guys. I actually returned the set yesterday and ordered another set that is hubcentric to the hub and wheels.

I love the look of my Methods, which are my summer wheels and once switching back to stock for the winter, the lack of offset bothered me. Therefore, the 1.5" spacers will bring the stock wheels to about the same spot as the Methods, like said.

And to be honest, I really feel that spacers are completely fine. As long as their made well and have pressed in studs. ALSO, the biggest part is making sure you know what your doing when you install and make sure their installed correctly, and torqued correctly. If those two things aren't done, and you don't check the torque after 50 miles and then again at every wheel rotation, then you are looking for problems. I have used spacers on other vehicles and have never had a problem or have one come loose.

All preference though. I will get some pics up when I get the new spacers and mount everything back up.