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

On Tue, 8 Dec 2015 18:32:31 -0700, BobH
wrote:

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
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.

On 12/8/2015 6:43 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 8 Dec 2015 18:32:31 -0700, BobH
wrote:
snip
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
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.


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

On 09-Dec-15 9:32 AM, BobH wrote:
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


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

On Wed, 9 Dec 2015 13:18:56 +0800
800L wrote:

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

Depending on how far you want to space them out:

http://www.amazon.com/s/185-8990793-... heel%20spacer

$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...

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

On Tue, 08 Dec 2015 20:43:53 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 8 Dec 2015 18:32:31 -0700, BobH
wrote:

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
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.

+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.

--
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before
which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
-- John Quincy Adams

On Wed, 09 Dec 2015 08:18:22 -0800
Larry Jaques wrote:

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

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...

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

On Wed, 9 Dec 2015 13:18:56 +0800, 800L wrote:

On 09-Dec-15 9:32 AM, BobH wrote:
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


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

On Wed, 09 Dec 2015 08:18:22 -0800, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Tue, 08 Dec 2015 20:43:53 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 8 Dec 2015 18:32:31 -0700, BobH
wrote:

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
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.

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