dutchduo1990
Advanced Member
I have heard a lot about wheel spacers added to class b’s. What is the purpose of this. Is it only done to certain chassis and if so for what reasons.
It is all about thrust and drag. On each side of the vehicle you have drag centered on the front wheel for that side. At the same time you have thrust centered on the rear wheel for that side. Now if the thrusting force is not directly behind the drag it will try to make the misalignment even worse. One may think the two sides would cancel each other, but in real life there are other factors involved. Tire pressures, weight distribution, road surface and other things. Result, a vehicle with tendencies to wander like a drunken sailor. I have a 95dodgeRoadtrek 190P that acted like that. Reason was the rear axle was the same as used on the dual wheel pickups but the van only uses one wheel per side. This results in a narrower track compared to the front wheels. I verified this by placing bricks against the outside of front tires then moving the van out of the way so I could easily measure the distance between the bricks. Repeated for the rear wheels and then compared measurements. Sure enough they were quite different. Divided the difference by two and ordered two spacers accordingly. Now the van acts nice and sober so the police don’t want to check MY breath.I have heard a lot about wheel spacers added to class b’s. What is the purpose of this. Is it only done to certain chassis and if so for what reasons.
Agreed. When I wrote that I was thinking there can't be that many owners of such old vehicles looking for solutions to handling problems. Now I'm feeling a little guilty about spreading internet mis-information. So, for the record, even though I never used them with our van, I got the impression from reading scores of posts on the subject that the folks who installed spacers were the happiest with the improvement in handling, compared to all the other solutions like shock absorbers, steering stabilizers, and alignment tweaks. And I also don't remember anyone saying the spacers caused any damage to the rear axle. Plus, the argument for spacers seemed to have the most science behind it, in that the handling problems I had with my 2000 Dodge were definitely dependent on the condition of the road.I have heard the claim that it could lead to axle failure but have not read about any such failure. I don't see how that could happen as after all, the axle was designed to have another wheel out there. Just mho.
Agreed. When I wrote that I was thinking there can't be that many owners of such old vehicles looking for solutions to handling problems. Now I'm feeling a little guilty about spreading internet mis-information. So, for the record, even though I never used them with our van, I got the impression from reading scores of posts on the subject that the folks who installed spacers were the happiest with the improvement in handling, compared to all the other solutions like shock absorbers, steering stabilizers, and alignment tweaks. And I also don't remember anyone saying the spacers caused any damage to the rear axle. Plus, the argument for spacers seemed to have the most science behind it, in that the handling problems I had with my 2000 Dodge were definitely dependent on the condition of the road.
Michaelingp, just so you know, there are still quite a few out there seeking to improve their wandering vans….. I’m one of them with the 2003 dodge Roadtrek we picked up last fall. And, the axle damage comments- those are related to wearing out bearings faster. A semi-floating axle has one outer bearing, and spacing the wheel out farther adds more twist to the axle shaft and flange, increasing wear on the bearing. Full floating axles, however, have 2 bearings out there and the spacer/adapter does not affect them much due to the design difference over a semi floating axle. I’m just shopping around for a set of adapters and came across this post, so I thought I’d toss my 2 cents in…..