My brother just got a 2003 F350 Dually and is wanting to put the tires off his 2001 F250 on it.

He has 285/75/16 on the F250 which are a little less than 2" wider than the tires on the dually (235/85/16).

My question is do to the tires being a little wider will there need to be a spacer or something to keep the dual rear wheels from rubbing?? If so doe anyone know what size spacer.

I know the front wheels will be fine as the rims are the same 16x7 that is currently on his F250.

Any information would be greatful and I'm sure that he would be greatful also.. Now just wish I could get him to get a darn computer..

 

235/85/16's have about 1 1/2"-1 3/4" of space between the wheels unweighted (I have a set of dually wheels in my garage with 235/85/16 tires and just measured between them). Going to a 285/75/16 would reduce that space to a negative number. So yes, he would need spacers. I would go with a 2" bolt-on spacer. This would give him enough space between the wheels and not require that the lugs be cut down. Anything less than 2" and the lugs have to be shortened. You can look in my gallery to see the rear wheel spacing with 35x10.5 tires and a 2" spacer between the wheels. This would give him an idea of what it would look like. However I do run 16x7 wheels so....

Now unless your Bro' put on a SRW wheel in the front of his dually (which would look strange with the factory spacer) he has 16x6 wheels all around. All F-350 dually's from '99-'04 came with 16x6 wheels. In fact it's nearly impossible to find anything wider than 6.5" in dually wheel for our Fords in the aftermarket.

 

Go with 285's, stock wheels and get 2" spacers. http://www.ezaccessory.com/Wheel_Adapter_8_Lug_170_To_8_Lug_170_p/8170-8170b.htm

 

Thanks .. One more question, I know when I put the 285/75/16 on my truck on the stock 16x7 rims they recommended I get wider rims (16x8-16x10). So my question is since he is using the 285 that are now on the F250 with 16x7 rims and putting them on the dually which has 16x6 rims are they going to work okay , are there any issues because of the even smaller rim width compared to the tire which is approx 5 inches wider than the rim?

 

The standard liability answer is always stay within the tire manufacturers minimum rim width requirements. Now with that out of the way. Unfortunately, there's no "one size fits all" answer to this question. I've seen guys run some pretty wide tires on the 16x6 rims and had no problems. Others reported that it made the truck feel "squirmy". Some of the issues I know of with running a wide tire on a narrow rim are that the tire will bulge a lot more in the center causing premature wear. There's also the risk, under a heavy load and a lot of lateral force (cornering to fast, sudden severe wind gust, etc) that you could roll the tire off of the bead easier than with a wider rim. I run a 35x10.5 as my spare on a stock 16x6 wheel and have had to use it for about a month now. I really haven't noticed any difference in wear and handling. But that's a low mileage, short term, unloaded without towing, experience.

Back to the spacer issue. If he chooses to go with them they need to be the hub-centric type to match the stock mounting method. The ones listed by 389sixpack do not appear to be and make no mention of this in their description.