Spacers are bad m'kay!

Glad to hear that you pulled off the road at just the right time, that could have been a really bad day!! Thanks for sharing as well, as to no one's surprise, you were quick to be called out for using cheap, non-hub-centric spacers.

I really want to throw some spacer's on my wife's 16 4R, but it's these kind of stories that prevent me from doing so. I do know to use hub centric, but that risk of failure just for looks is always in the back of my mind. There's also a different accountability when modding the wife's vehicle, haha.

 

I have a set of 4 blue Spidertrax hubcentric spacers sitting right next to me but is has been way too hot to install them.
It's supposed to get under 100* next week but I am also going to replace all the studs just to be safe.

I can't deal with the sunken in look of the wheels in the standard position after having spacers installed.
I love the look of the stock rims so I don't want to buy aftermarket ones.

It would also be a complete waste since I only put about 3K miles on it per year since I have a work vehicle.
The tires have about 5k miles on them and are like new.

 

I ordered 8 more rear studs and 14 front studs so I would have extras in case I had problem ones.

It came to about 80 dollars.

 

The best $80 you can spend!

 

I finally got everything swapped out including new pads although I didn't really need them. Then I went to test drive it and I got what sounded like metal to metal squealing. I had inspected all the drums/rotors discs and shoes and could not determine exactly what it was. Today I threw a couple of gopros under the 4Runner and it's on the right rear. About a minute in it starts and 1.5 it really starts making noise.



Now I'm convinced the rear rotor/drum is warped causing the osculating sound. I ordered a new set. I will find out Monday if I'm right.

You can see recent wear on the bottom of the shoe. Hopefully that's it because I can't find any other wear.

 

The osculating sound is gone with the new brake drum/discs but the caliper is sticking. I have a brand new one sitting in the garage because I was expecting it. I will swap it Friday then bleed the brakes. It was fun explaining to my wife about helping me with pump, hold and release.

 

Time for a final update. This went on way too long but it is finally fixed.

Luckily I have a paid work vehicle so the 4Runner is only for weekend use and we have a RAV4 so I did not have to fix it in any time frame.

When I replaced the wheel studs I had the caliper sitting off to the side. At one point I had to press the brake to put the transmission in neutral.

This caused the piston to pop out all the way. I placed it back in but it caused the caliper to drag from then on.

I had already purchased a replacement full caliper but had not changed it out yet.

The faulty caliper was dragging and causing a lot of noise. I finally changed it and bled the brakes.

With a couple of test drives it made a worse noise than before that at first I thought was due to rust on the drum/disc. but it only got worse.

After multiple times removing and re-installing everything I finally narrowed it down to the new brake caliper mount that was badly manufactured

and was rubbing against the brake rotor. I installed the original caliper mount with the new caliper and it is now working as it should.

#1 whenever a caliper is not on the rotor use a 5" clamp with a piece of steel to keep it from moving if you have to press the brake petal.

#2 don't expect a new part to actually fit as expected.

Driving my 4Runner tonight was great after all that bullshit.

 

Good on you for pulling over right away.