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Wheel spacers and torque

To: autox@autox.team.net
Subject: Wheel spacers and torque
From: Craig Blome <cblome@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 06:30:16 -0700 (PDT)
Hey all,

Got a question about the wheel spacers I use with my
race rims.  I have a pretty basic set of 1/4", 4x100,
non-hubcentric spacers I use with the front wheels on
my Miata.  When I first started using them, I noticed
that they turned on the hub a tiny bit and were hard
to pry off (steel lugs bite into aluminum spacers
pretty viciously!)  My procedure then was this:

1.  jack up car
2.  change wheels and install spacers
3.  spin lug nuts tight (one good tug, maybe 15 lb-ft)
4.  lower car
5.  torque lug nuts to spec, car on ground

I discovered if I added a couple of extra steps, the
problem with turning went away:

6.  drive car around pits
7.  re-torque lug nuts to spec

This doesn't happen when I use wheels without spacers.
 Any idea what's going on?  Did I goof something up? 
I'm really more worried about abusing the lugs as
they're more expense and fuss to replace than spacers.
 (and it'd be just my luck to get protested for having
ARP wheel lugs... :)

TIA,
Craig Blome


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