Those lockwashers do not have to be removed when installing spidertrax spacer. There are spaces machined on the backside of the spacers for those, that's what you see in that picture...

 

According to the instructions:

Step 1: Remove drum/rotor retaining clips if present....

http://www.quadratec.com/Assets/Installation/54391.pdf

 

I didn't see any lock washers/retaining clips. But I'm not the original owner of this Jeep either. The previous owner also had some wheel/tire combo, so perhaps he had already done that.
I'm sure the cause was improper torque.
And you can see in that pic armycop copied, the insides of the stud holes were bored out from the studs spinning in there, though most of that damage to the back of the spacer likely happened after it broke free.
I only made it 180 miles on em before they gave up. And the final catalyst was something in the road - pothole or rut or something. I may have made it to the shop I had not hit that.

 

What exactly failed? Did the studs snap? Did the lug nuts simply loosen and back out? It looks to me that the spacer itself (and the spacers studs/lugs) did not fail.

 

Jeeez... between worrying about my Jeep spontaneously combusting and my wheels falling off (when I do get spacers.) I just might go crazy.

 

The spacer was still solidly attached to the wheel. So the exterior lug nuts were torqued well to the spacers lugs.
No stud snapped, which is what I thought at first. They came unpressed from the axle housing though. The nuts from the Spidertrax on the Jeep's studs came off and were still sandwiched between the wheel and spacer when we separated them. They just worked themselves off. Like I said, they weren't torqued down enough. The studs in the spacer are still solidly pressed into it, ever after all that.

It damaged the axle bearing housing, the spacer and the wheel. That was the extent of it. Even the brake disc only had cosmetic damage. Had the wheel come off completely though, that'd be a different story.

 

I ran those spacers on my last JK for 6 months with no problems. Glad you're okay. One thing though, did you drive about 50 miles and recheck the torques on the axle lugs? It's important to do that.

 

Thanks.
And no, I didn't do that. I'm sure that's in the instructions eh?
I bought em used, threw em on and away I went.

It's all good. I was only planning on using spacers and the Rubi wheels about 3-4 months while I saved for the 7005s. This just moved my timeframe ahead.

 

Dumb question....what is the difference between the stock Ruby wheel and the stock X wheel?

Thanks!

 

Rubi is 17" and X is 16" (though that may depend on the year).

My stock X wheel was this one:


And the Rubi Moabs are these: