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I just put some 15mm spacers on my back wheels (doing front later) and I learned a lot about installing spacers that I had not a slightest idea might come up.
First of all, this tutorial is for hubcentric spacers. The other ones suck unless you just need a little clearance. Hubcentric ones go onto your hub and have a hub of their own for your rim to sit on, making them much safer and much tougher. They also have their own studs so you don't lose stud length for your lugnuts.
The thing that made me say "wtf" is the fact that when I first put em on, my wheels were wobbling. Initially I thought these spacers just don't fit my rim but then I realized your rims sink onto the spacer's hub, sitting farther and farther in, making you have to re-tighten the lugnuts.
When you put your wheels on initially, you're gonna want to drive a mile or two, pull over, tighten them all. Keep going in a star pattern until they are all tight - you will tighten one lugnut and suddenly a different one will have a little space to be tightened more and so on. When they are tight by feel (don't over tighten them just like you shouldn't over tighten your wheels anyway) - all of them on both sides - drive another five miles or so and do it again.
In my experience, I did just that but the spacers set even more over the next few days. I would go to work and do everything I need to do but I would tighten them every morning. Eventually my back wheels stopped wobbling.
They really enhance the look of the car. The stock wheels actually reach the fender. And I don't know if it's just in my head but it seems to handle better. Makes sense... Wider wheelbase.
Don't do all 4 tires at once. Two wobbling is OK as long as you know what you're doing but not 4.
This is how you install the actual spacer.
Take off your wheel and slap this on. What you need to do and what is very important is centering your cars studs in the circles of the spacer. Put all the nuts on like halfway - pointy part facing into the spacer - then line up the spacer and initially use your fingers to tighten the bolts perfectly centered in the holes. The pointy part helps as well as the fact that they should all look the same when you're done. In the pic above, you can see the stud and nut are both dead center.
Tighten the nuts with the same amount of torque as you use on your wheels. Just get them on there as good as possible with a ratchet.
Get the wheel on centered aswell. It will be a little harder depending on your rims but you need to have it perfectly centered on the new hub. If your lugnuts are designed to go inside your rim partly to center it like stock LS400 wheels, you're golden.
Get your lugnuts and sit down in front of the tire. Put it on and start putting the lugnuts on with your fingers. If they do go inside the rim, start by lining up the top one. It will help center the rest of the studs.
Once you get them hand tightened as much as you can and the wheel is in the right position (see pic above), start tightening the lugnuts. Go slowly initially to make real sure they end up centered.
If you can't tell by now, that's important.
You know the rest. Use your lugnut wrench to tighten the nuts as much as possible. Keep going over them with a lugnut wrench - not an air gun - until they don't want to turn anymore. The spacer bolts on easily while the rim itself needs a little push, so to speak.
You know you're close or already there when your lugnut ends become flush with the studs.
Please be careful and take your time. You really shouldn't drive for long periods of time with wobbly wheels for obvious reasons.
surprised walmart carries something like this, when lots of shops around my area will not even touch a car with bolt on spacers!
good work on the tutorial, and I want to emphasize the need to properly torque the lugs especially when using spacers.
you have to properly bolt on and torque the spacers prior to putting on the wheels (obviously).
This will prove to be more of a challenge in the front where there is no axle to keep the hub from spinning while tightening.
you'll have to get creative and either have someone depress the brake pedal as you tighten, or find a bar to "lock" the hub from spinning.
then of course you must ensure the wheel is properly seated on the new spacer, as you found out.
I like to tighten all the lugs as far as my hand can go, then slowly lower the car on the ground, only enough to lock the hub but without the full weight of the car.
then tighten in a star pattern, then raise up the car, rotate the wheels half a turn, then repeat for good measure!
I'm having a slight issue with vibration with my 15mm spacers and SC430 wheels. I had Discount balance them, twice, and I'm still getting a vibration. I hated how they removed my previously torqued spacers, now I have to retorque them due to them being removed and repositioned. I think they may be the cause of my vibrations. I don't trust those 16 yr old kids working on my car so I always double check their work myself.
I also noticed that your 19mm nuts that were supplied with your spacers are already becoming rounded off. I had to use my 19mm Craftsman socket which has the hex part go all the way to the end of the socket compared to most impact sockets which don't and which is why they start rounding off.
I purchased some Dorman open ended acorn buldge 12x1.5 lugnuts from Orielly to hopefully get a better seat on the spacer and prevent the rounding off of those cheap nuts that hold the spacer to the hub. The ones provided are just too shallow so I felt the need to buy some more substantial lugnuts to hold the spacer on. They sell them in boxes of 10 too which is perfect for a pair of spacers
As for your wobble, is it on both sides? If it's just one then try taking the wheel off, check the spacer to make sure the nuts are centered, then put your wheel back on how you normally would. It might be off so little that you can't see it so re-doing it might center it.
08-06-18, 04:05 AM
Tutorial: Installing Hubcentric Spacers - wobble?
