Radial tires for AA Trucks

I have no personal experience with this, but I just googled "dually tires touching" and apparently it's still a topic of discussion on modern trucks. Many folks are of the opinion that contact between the tires will cause severe heat buildup, leading to premature degradation of the tires and possibly a blow-out. The recommended solutions tend to be either increase the tire pressure, so they don't flatten out as much, or install wider spacers on the lugs to physically separate the two rims. However, the spacers can't be so wide that the lug nuts don't get a safe amount of thread to grip.

I dunno if this applies to AAs, but if you're running radials then probably the situation is similar to modern trucks.
 
These spacers came out of a AA I have to keep the duals from rubbing.


Bob
 

Attachments

  • DCP_1001.JPG
    DCP_1001.JPG
    111.5 KB · Views: 16

alexiskai, I Googled too and found what you just described. Heat dissipation seems to be the main concern and with a large enough gap between the tires air will pass by and keep the temperature under control. I have a 5/8" gap except at the bottom where they touch. I hope this gap will be sufficient. I will check temperature on each side of the tires with a digital termometer and decide afterwards if I need to separate them even further.

Bob, how thick are those spacers?

Bill, do you have some pictures?
 
Here is a picture of one of the inner lug nuts with 1" spacer built in.
 

Attachments

  • 423A0859  m.jpg
    423A0859 m.jpg
    30.2 KB · Views: 13
Last edited:
Here is a picture of one of the inner lug nuts with 1" spacer built in.
If inner and outer rims doesn't make contact there will be a lot of bending forces added to the wheel studs on top of the tensile force which normally is the only force on a bolt under tension. I think 3/8" spacers with full contact is as far as you can go. Otherwise you need an adapter of this type:
 

Attachments

  • wheel adapter 1.jpg
    wheel adapter 1.jpg
    9.4 KB · Views: 3
Last edited:
Back
Top