Intro to fitting 35s (< 3" Lifts for those that wheel and love alignments)

Why not just run a spacer? Nothing wrong with them.

It’ll likely just make it rub in a different place though.

 

Because spacers can and have failed..

 

You have to run spacers on most shock relocations in the rear. Havent seen any of those fail. Do we have an example of a spacer failing outside of neglect or combinations of extreme wheel offsets or in situations that other parts would have failed such as abuse?>

 

I’ve had 2 sets of spacers over the years, spidertrax and Bora. I can’t say I’ve wheeled harder than anyone else, but I pushed everything to the limits, and the wheel spacers haven’t had a failure.

 

Pretty tough to distinguish all that.. but I have personally seen one set fail on a buddies truck, and have heard of other locals shearing off studs as well. Could they have failed due to any of the general things you listed.. sure.. but why even take the chance if its a known potential. That's just my opinion... and to play devils advocate to myself.. I have seen them ran just fine on vehicles as well. Personally I just wouldnt, and dont, take that chance.

 

Fair enough, seems to be circumstantial. I and many of my friends wheel super hard, some almost destroying their truck in the process and no issues with wheel spacers.

Most people are pretty lazy when it comes to checking them.

 

100% agree.. and I think those are the largest of the contributing factors to your statement prior regarding them failing. There's just too many variables.

 

Has anybody run a rough country 3.5 lift with control arms and been able to fit 315 75 16 before, seen 295 75 16 but go big or go home right

 

I recommend reading the first post.

 

So I am glad to have come across this post, I just came into the circumstance of needing wheel spacers. Just mounted my first aftermarket wheel combo. Got the Pro Comp Series 6x5.5 with 265/75/16 Falken Wild Peaks. But now they are rubbing my brake pads.

I've heard the concerns for spacers but don't feel I have much a choice. So which spacers do yall reccommend and what are the "required maintenance" to prevent disaster on the trail?

 

What are the specs on the pro comp wheels?
Back space
Rim width and off set

Depending on that, will tell you how thick of a spacer you can allowably have. You don’t really want to go over 3.5” of back space. Another option is to shave down the caliper a bit, but that is a last resort if you are dead set on keeping the wheels.

 

Backspacing: 4.25
Wheel width: 8
Offset: -6

I was thinking a 33mm (1.18") spacer. I didn't want a larger spacer in fear of causing unwanted stress on the bearing (from what I heard happens).

 

https://www.motorsport-tech.com/bora.html

I hope they are rubbing your calipers and not your "pads".

 

Bora also has longer threads.

 

I have brand new 1.25" ones for sale in the wheel/tires forum.

 

are those stock length tierods? also is the rack straight bolt on to the steering shaft?

 

Bora makes 0.75” spacers. That’s bout thickest recommended for your wheel size

 

Steering shaft needs to be shortened by about 1-1.5'', I just remade mine entirely out of some solid 3/4'' round stock. Had to flap disk the frame a bit to get the ujoint at the rack to clear. New steering shaft itself gets probably 1 or 2mm away from the frame, if you dont make a new one and you keep the "collapsable" part in, you will have to heavily notch the frame.
Also had to lift my 3.5l to right below where it touches firewall/fan shroud to get it to clear the rack, and even then it rubs the dust off of the rack after a wheeling trip, even with poly mounts that dont really move.
Besides making a steering shaft and lifting the motor, its all "bolt in" and I could bolt a stock rack back in with a stock steering shaft.

 

Good info. This is on my short list of stuff to do before mine goes bad with 38’s.

 

Out of curiosity, how did you find that .75" is the recommended size for my wheel? Is there some fancy algorithm out there I don’t know about?