Dually spacer for wide tire discussion

toyota231

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Location
Kernersville NC
Quick little background story for the discussion. Im doing my research on converting my 1st gen w250 to a dually. Im running the 37" military tires now and want to run them in a dual setup with factory 16.5 dually wheels. I know there are a few guys on here that have run wider tires on the dual setup, granted i know most have been on 3rd and 4th gens. Ive been researching a lot of threads but theres no real answers. Now i know all setups are different but my question is:

What width tires are you guys finding that you are having to start using spacers between the dually tires? Im wanting to run a 12.50 wide tire on factory 16.5x? dually wheels.
 
245" (9.6" wide) is about the limit on most stock dually wheels before spacers, although 3rd gen+ Dodge wheels seem to have a little more backspacing and allow for 265s. On my dually I ran 285s with 1.5" spacers and had adequate room, about 1" or so between the duals. When I went to 315s (12.5) with the 1.5" the tires touched before mounting and the lugs snugged it down the last 1/4", so I put on 2.5" spacers, now I have a little less than an inch between the tires.
 
GCncsuHD said:
245" (9.6" wide) is about the limit on most stock dually wheels before spacers, although 3rd gen+ Dodge wheels seem to have a little more backspacing and allow for 265s. On my dually I ran 285s with 1.5" spacers and had adequate room, about 1" or so between the duals. When I went to 315s (12.5) with the 1.5" the tires touched before mounting and the lugs snugged it down the last 1/4", so I put on 2.5" spacers, now I have a little less than an inch between the tires.
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When you bought your spacers where did you buy them from? Also did you buy aluminum or steel spacers? My biggest problem with my swap is gonna be finding the dually axle for my truck, since im using the spacer between the tires that means no spacer on the factory axle itself to gain the width. Im having to try to find width measurments on different dually axles, dana 80 from different year dodges, and im also considering doing a 14 bolt with disc brakes but i would like to try to keep a dana axle so it will be easier to remeber what parts to buy.

On a side note im starting to think i should just trade my 1st gen off for a dually but i just cant seem to bring my self to get rid of the old girl.
 
Both sets of spacers for my dually have been from user tireshopsupplies on ebay, they are aluminum and have quality studs. I have had great results from there. I have also used motorsports tech and ezaccessory for spacers as well, their spacers were well built, but I had horribly customer service experiences with them.

When looking for axles, keep in mind that pairing the correct wheels and axles is very important. Most OEM dually wheels are hub centric only and use a flat lug nut or a centering ring. GM axles have a 4.56" hub to 2000, in 2001 it went to 4.60", Dodge has a 4.78" hub after 94, and Ford had 4.88" up to 1997. The exception is pre 93 Dodges were lug centered with a 4.75" bore. If you tried to put Dodge wheels on a GM axle you would never get them centered and get all sorts of vibrations. This also means your spacer must be hub centric. I made that mistake once when I ditched the 16.5"s on my dually for some Dodge 16"s.

The exception is if you use aftermarket aluminum wheels, as most are lug centric only, that is how my dually is, but you must still be certain your inner wheel is correct.
 
Im glad you brought up the lug centric and hub centric. I had thought of it but havnt found any info on it. My plan was to run older 16.5" dually wheels so i could run the 37-12.50-16.5 military tires, i found a guy above raleigh that has the wheels for pretty cheap. Looks like im going to run into a problem there with the rear axle. Now on the front im going to stay with a regular wheel (non dually wheel) for the look. My plan has been to find a dana 80 out of a 94 and later dodge unless i can find one from a 1st gen dodge but thats so hard to find at a decent price. Looks like i just opened up a can of worms lol.
 
Yep, you won't find any 16.5"s to directly fit that Dana 80, your best bet would be to find some older Chevy 16.5"s with the small 4.56" bore, then take them to a machine shop to have them bored out to 4.78 to fit the Dodge axle. Ricky B is/was actually running my old 16.5"s bored out on his Dodge dually.
 
Luckily there are a few good machine shops around here and that won't be expensive to do. That may be the way I go with it. Thanks for the info.
 
Training wheels are for pussies. Just get a tube of testosterone grab a grease gun and pack that vagina real good.:flipoff2:
 
Do me a favor and look in your yard and tell me how many tires that black monster has under it lol. I'm just trying to get enough tires so I don't turn over.
 
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