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| ken Member Since: 18 Aug 2009 Location: Banging Birds with my bitches !! Posts: 4328  
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Not until Load rating is applied
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1st Mar 2012 10:31am |
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| blackwolf Member Since: 03 Nov 2009 Location: South West England Posts: 17344 
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Moving the centre of the wheel further outboard of the kingpins will indeed alter the load on the kingpins and may increase the stress on them, however the effect will be negligible unless you use spacers or an offset that is unfeasibly lareg for normal operation. The additional load on the kingpins imposed by, say, an electric winch will be significantly greater than that imposed by any sensible spacer. However the point I was making in my earlier post is that the text I quoted was implying that using a wheel with a different offset to the original will alter the axle component loadings less than using a spacer to achieve the same change in offset. This is both untrue and absurd. The only issue of significance in this scenario is whether the spacer is of sufficient strength to do the job safely, since a thin spacer will itself be quite highly stressed. It is therefore important that it is of sufficient quality and material strength to avoid becoming stressed beyond the material's yield point and thus strained. |
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1st Mar 2012 10:50am |
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| leeds Member Since: 28 Dec 2009 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 8580
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I quoted the bumf off the Zu im sites, basically to state the load rating of the Zu rims.
I readily admit I do not know enough about the geometry of the suspension/drive train/CV joints to comment on any change of stress or strain on various components. The question of spacers increasing stress/strain on various components always gets polarised answers of yes it does, no it does not. However my understanding is that MSA bans the use of wheel spacers in club level RTVs trials. So IF people want to ft spacers for whatever reason they are likely to be not eligible to take part in MSA regulated RTV trials. Brendan |
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1st Mar 2012 11:36am |
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| blackwolf Member Since: 03 Nov 2009 Location: South West England Posts: 17344
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Yes I believe that that is the case, but the reason, so far as I know, is largely historical. Once upon a time the 'normal' approach to using spacers was to fit longer wheel studs, with a spacer that fits over the studs, then the wheel, then the wheelnuts to hold it all together. This tended to result in stud failure and wheel separation, which is not really good. I believe that this was the reason for the MSA prohibition. Modern spacers, at least those which made by reputable makers and are fit-for-purpose, bolt on in place of the wheel and are fitted with an additional set of studs to which the wheel is then fitted. This is, subject to certain limitiations, stronger and more satisfactory. I have not heard of one failing, though this is of course not to say that none has. The limitiations are that the there is a minimum thickness less than which you cannot make a spacer like this, the minimum being defined by two factors. Firstly, the spacer has to be thick enough to accept the second set of studs (not usually a problem), and secondly, the spacer has to be thick enough to be counterbored to allow the nuts holding it to the hub to be entirely below the wheel-mounting surface while retaining enough material thickness between the nut and the hub to provide sufficient strength. The original studs must also not protrude beyond the outer face of the spacer, however it may be possible to fit shorter studs if necessary. In practice this means that you won't find spacers thinner than 30mm. There remains a perception that fitting spacers is very much a "boy racer" type of modification, and I suspect that this is the reason why some insurance companies get uppity about them. I am pretty certain that a good quality (OEM-spec wheel, such as Boost) fitted on a good-quality spacer (such as a Rakeway 30mm) will be stronger than many aftermarket alloys. Unltimately (of course) the owner of the vehicle must make up his or her own mind and be happy with his/her decision. To do this, they should have accurate and honest information upon which to base that decision, and that is why remarks like the on I originally picked up on are not helpful. Given that there are many members of this forum who run Defenders with spacers, and clearly many members who (like me) have been playing with Landrovers for 35 years or more, if they were as dangerous and damaging as some think you would expect that there would be well-known instances of failure. I am not aware of a single failure, though there must be some. Has anyone here ever actually had a spacer fail, or swivel pin or ball joint failure which is attributable to the use of a spacer? It would be interesting to hear. |
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1st Mar 2012 12:55pm |
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