i am finally building a truly traditional hot rod for a customer who has been loyal and spent at least 200g on 2 street rods and a stock 63 t-bird at my shop. he decided he wanted to build something i could get excited about. so we purchased a 30 A and started from scratch. he gave me executive decision on how it should be built, he has input and demands, but on the whole I'm building it like i want. i chose to use a 48 ford truck rear with 4:10 gears and a width that is close to the body, well, before i had even began to build a frame he decided to order the tires and wheels from coker, 10'' pie crust ww slicks for the back and stock steel wheels. we agreed on the tire and wheel combo but he was a little fast on the credit card draw, he ordered them with out knowing any back space info. now the tires hit the body. pisses me off. but hey, it is his money. what do you all think of 1.5 wheel spacers and where can i get a set. 5 on 5.5. im not sure how good of an idea this is, should i just send them back to coker and let them adjust the back spacing? or just tell him he owns a pair of 10'' spares, and buy another set with the correct offset?
The spacers would work fine. If the wheels are just plain steel wheels replace the wheels. Good spacers will cost almost the same as new wheels.
spacers cause more pressure on the axle bearings, and stress on the axles.I think with 1 1/2" spacers it would be a negligable amount, But you should get wheels that fit if you can afford it.
Must be a California thing !! I was gonna say the same thing ! But at the least get the right offset on the wheels.
What you should look at are wheel adapters which bolt to the original wheel studs and then provide a second set of studs for the wheels to bolt to - either hub centric or lug centric depending on the wheels you have. They are available from 1.25" up from www.ezaccessory.com at around $60 pair.
If too much time hasn't passed, see if Coker will swap them with some with the right offset. Steel wheels can't be that much, if not, and sell off the other ones... or get a wider rear axle. Do it right, do it once.