Weird issue with wheel spacer

[Drgordon13]

Hi all...so I bought some 1 1/2" wheel spacers off amazon a few months ago...installed with no issues and did notice a difference and was pleased.

Halloween night we were riding and it felt like the rear wheel was going to fall off! So I removed the wheel (driver rear) and one of the lugs holding the spacer on was super loose...so I tightened it back down thinking I may have missed it when I installed.

Last week my wife was riding the kids and it did the same thing...again I took the wheel off and this time the lug had fallen off!

So I removed all the wheels and checked the other lugs on the spacers and all of them were tight as can be...I removed them all and put the wheels back on.

Just to be safe I have checked the lug on the tire after I replaced it and it seems to be staying tight.

I loved the spacers but am reluctant to put more on the cart...very weird!

Anyone else have this experience? Oh and of course they were out of warranty (60 days)!

[jeffahfah]

get different lugs?. I had issues with the lugs provided with the spacers on one wheel and getting a clicking sound no matter how clean or tight everything was. Fortunately I switched wheels and used the stock lugs for the spacers and new lugs for the new wheels, no problems since.

[robertmII]

I would blue loctite all the lugs. That should prevent them from backing out.

[ATrain]

This is a pure mechanical thing so it should be easy to identify.

First thing to check is if the lug threads are correct. Sometimes metric/standard are very close but are different. You can see numbers printed on the side of the lug that you can Google to find out, or just compare against the other lugs. I would still Google both lug #'s in case there is another labeling system, but either way that tells you the size.

Second thing is obviously making sure they're the correct tightness, which is 80 Nm or 58 ft. lbs., which can be done with a torque wrench. If you're saying they're "as tight as they can be", that means they're overtightened.

If they're overtightened, they shouldn't fall off though, so that makes me think you're using capped lug nuts that are too shallow for the studs somewhere. A capped lug nut is just a nut that is covered on one end to look nice. When the stud goes in though, if it's not deep enough it will bottom out and feel "tight", but in reality it's not tight against the wheel. So if this is the case, loctite is just going to complicate the real problem.

The last thing, which I highly doubt, is if you managed to overtighten the lugs so much that you've broken the stud loose...but if that was the case the lug would tighten and keep spinning...so I highly doubt this is the case.

Originally Posted by jeffahfah

get different lugs?. I had issues with the lugs provided with the spacers on one wheel and getting a clicking sound no matter how clean or tight everything was. Fortunately I switched wheels and used the stock lugs for the spacers and new lugs for the new wheels, no problems since.

This is usually a guaranteed fix for all of the issues. Stock lugs for the inside studs guarantee the correct threads and depth. The new lugs for outside studs that came with your kit should be guaranteed to match the threads too. The issue would be aesthetic/appearance. I personally don't think it's a big deal...up to you.

[Drgordon13]

Thanks for the thoughts...I ordered new lugs and put them on yesterday...tightened to 58# and we will see how it goes!