So I got new tires today, and when I got home I noticed the distance between the sidewalls on one side was larger than the other - sure enough, I can put my palm in there all the way to the thumb knuckle on the wide side, and barely my finger tips on the narrow side. Darn! Off come the wheels, looking at the wheel codes - three are 28333, one is 28371, that single one has more dish to it and it's what's making for the extra space... So tomorrow I get to pull the front wheels and check them to see if any is a 28371 code as well, and there are two spares also - yup FML for sure. Hopefully I do get lucky tho and find one more deep-dish wheel cause if I run all 28333s on the rear there is very little space between their sidewalls, way too little for my liking. Anyone know what the backspacing is for the 28333 and the 28371 wheels in inches?

 

that sucks want to know what screwy things happened to me? driving 70mph down a hill on the expressway here a big boom from the rear end and the truck shaking real bad pull off the exit immediately and lost my U-joint, limped the truck into the dealer lot with what was left of the joint, lot is 100' away which was a chevy dealer in case your wondering and walked to the parts store to get my replacement and had to change it in the parking lot, btw is it bad if theres a little less space between your sidewalls on the duals?

 

Preventive maintenance is king with older vehicles, half the stuff I replaced on my truck wasn't bad yet, but better safe than sorry. Now you need to change your other U-joints as well, if one died so violently the rest are probably not too far behind

 

I know one pair of dually rims I have won't go on the inner rear, they hit the brake drums. Work fine on the outside, which is where they are right now, but I have to keep track of them when it goes for tires! Someday I need to do some musical tire and wheel moving and get it back on the original 6 rims again!

 

i scored 5 of mine at one salvage yard from a truck,and had to order my 6th from out of state.
you wouldn't believe the looks,comments,and just plain no clue from every single person i called,e-mailed,or spoke to in person with didn't know this.
everyone told me if its a ford dually rim it will work.some knew about the 2wd/4wd.but no one had a clue there are so many different offsets between them all.

you should have seen peoples faces,or when i called salvage yards ALL over the place if they would please check the inside # after the "Accuride" brand name stamp.
none of these salvage yards knew where to look,and clearly never been asked the question before.
it wasn't easy finding my missing 6th wheel,let me tell ya lol.

 

powerstroker,
What you don't want is for the tires to touch inside when you are loaded.

That is a sure fired way to overheat the sidewalls and have a blow out, probably both tires at the same time.

Thats why dual wheels are rather limited to what tires they can run.

 

ah very good, I figured it must have something to do with loads, I know on my rears I can fit my hand in between the two somewhat easily

 

You got the 28511 Accurides, correct? Those are the same as my 28333s, 16x6 with 5.00" outset, they even have the same replacement wheel (model 25977) - the only difference is my 25833s have a .625" hole for the tire valve, whereas yours and the replacement model use .453" valve.

Also, Accuride recommends minimum dual spacing of 10.75" for the 235/85-16 tires, my wheels are 5.00" outset each for a total of 10.00" dual spacing, so my wheels are 3/4" closer than they should be... And so are yours by the way, but not as bad - for your 225s they suggest 10.20" dual spacing, you got 10.00" so you should be good

As for what I should be running, turns out the correct wheels I need are the 28512 (obsoltete number) Accuride, current model 29578 - they are 16x6 size, 8 on 6.5" bolt pattern, but with 5.35" outset (which would make for 10.70" dual spacing which is perfect). Now where the heck am I gonna find them wheels, that's a whole different story... Or I can just remount the one tire from the 28371 wheel to a 28333 wheel and run some thin spacers between the inboards and outboards and be done with this whole mess!

 

Not sure if LCAM was doing the same, but I found this on Accuride's site. http://www.accuridewheels.com/lighttruckwheels.pdf

 

There are a couple gas pipe line welder rigs running around here that used the spacers you would run on a SRW axle to mount dual wheels.

One pair against the hub to get sprring clearance, another pair between the wheels for space between the tires so they can run 325 wide tires as duals.

They are also running another set on the front axle so they can have all six tires the same size.

Good thing those guys make good money, that is a pile of money in spacers before they ever start buying wheels and tires.

And then when they get off road, onboard air with air bags on all four corners for extra clearance with ARB air lockers in both axles.

Does make for a mean looking duallie though.

 

Dave, I think I'll go the spacers route - I'll put a 1/2" spacer between the wheels and use my factory studs and lugnuts, looks like there will be enough thread length for this and it will provide me with all the sidewall spacing that I need.

 

i think that's what id do too lcam.
only other way,would be if you could score dually rims for next to nothing.
the spacers are not to bad.around a hundred bucks or so on ebay i think,last i looked.
i know i wouldn't like dual 235's with mine.-yup 28511's.

are you sure 1/2 will be enough when loaded and tire bulge out a bit?

or you could just join me and run dual 8.9" doughnuts LOL.

 

1/2" will be plenty, I got about 1/4" or so now, with the spacers that becomes 3/4", for total dually spacing of 10-3/4" which is exactly what Accuride wants anyways and which is slightly more than what you can do with factory 4x4 dually wheels. Which wheels by the way are made of unobtainium apparently...

 

One of the welder's that works with us has a rig like that. It's a fairly new Dodge with a pumped up cummins. The tires, wheels and spacers are the cheap part. It's all the tranny's, axles and tcases he has had to replace that is the expensive part. Funny thing is, when the going gets tough, he spends just as much time hooked to the back of my dozer as everyone else. I get to drag em all. LOL

 

The rail road id part of the reason there are so many wheel spacings for these truck.

They have special backspace wheels on the trucks they drive on the rails so the tires line up with the rails.