Thanks! The tires i a looking at have a 3:4 offset, so not sure about spacers. I do not have disk in front yet, but probably a future upgrade. So are you saying that stock brakes i shouldnt need any spacers, but when i upgrade i should? I guess i am confused a bit on offests and how they work, not to mention what the car needs compared to the new wheels adding on.
If you but disc brakes on your car there are the large cylinders which clamp the disk and are generally called the calipers. The large chunks of metal which are what really are stopping your car and stick out into the line of the wheel. Therefore you either need wheels with an offset so the wheel āspokesā donāt contact the calipers or you need spacers to move the flat zero-offset stock GEM wheels away from the calipers. If you donāt understand what Iām saying then look at a few front disc brake systems on cars and you might get it.
AS far as the rear wheels go, they are setup with the fenders for GEM wheels with zero offset but when you buy a set of 4 wheels made for a regular car, they will all have the same offset so any of the wheels can be used on the front of the car. Manufacturers therefore extend the rear hubs out just a little bit so that the offset puts the wheels inside the wheel well properly. On the GEM, made for zero offset now needs the offset-wheels pushed outward a little bit to fit centered in the GEM wheel well. Thatās where a spacer comes in.
I had stock GEM wheels and put disc brakes on my car and so I needed the offset spacers in the front. But when I took the 2001 Prius wheels and tires and put them on my GEM, I removed the front spacer, not needed any more because the offset keeps the wheels from hitting the calipers. So I moved the spacers from the front to the rear and was lucky enough it was good enough so there was no rear fender rubbing.
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yeah very familiar with brakes in cars, etc. I am just looking to not order tires then have to wait even longer for spacers so was hoping that someone here would know if 3:4 offsets would need any spacers for all OEM drum brakes.
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Allās I did was measure the wheel offset and measure off the back of the āpizza cuttersā as the zero-offset GEM stock wheels are sometimes called. Sorry, I didnāt recall any of the measurements they were just done on the fly and verified so there wasnāt anything to remember since I already had all the parts on hand.
Iām getting lost with this measurement. The wheels Iāve seen are usually in mm.
Hereās a good thread talking about wheels and spacers.
I think itās just a matter of buying a spacer that equals the offset.
Can you post a link to the wheel youāre looking at?
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Google machine says 4:3 is 4 inches from the inner and 3 inches outer. So a 1/2 inch spacer would get you back to zero
If itās actually 3:4 as you mentioned, the wheel would be pushed out and you should be ok. Probably more of an issue depending on the wheel diameter