After reading a ton of threads on the Spidertrax wheel spacers I bought and installed a set on my Jeep. After installing and retorqing my spacers I am running accross a lot of threads that recommend "make sure you remove the retaining clips". Can someone let me know what problems I will have if I didn't? They are small circular clips around the lug nuts and when I was putting them on the back of the spacer has large recesses and don't see where it would be an issue. I didn't think that is what they were talking about until it was too late. Do I need to remove them and reinstall or am I okay?

 

Most spacers do not have a recess. The spidertracks may, you'll have uneven torquing which could make a wheel come loose, shimmys/shakes, damaged spacers/lugs, few variances of problems. I would take them all off. The clips are unnecessary as it is.

 

I didn't remove any of mine and after 12,000 miles, no issues whatsoever. Always recheck every tire rotation

 

you said that your spacers have a recess, so they seat flat, just leave them on, you won't have a problem. really is this even a question?

 

if he already put the spacers on, I would just leave them alone, no need to remove them at all.

 

if you leave them you might have an issue but if you don't have them at all then i will garranty that you will never have a problem with them.

 

What do those retaining clips do? I've had my Spidertrax Spacers on for about 20k miles and no issues so far.

 

They are called assembly clips. They are used during the manufacture of the axle assemblies to hold the brake rotors in place flush against the hub/shaft flange so that the brake caliper assembly can be assebled roboticly with no missalignment issues. Since they dont pose an issue with stock wheels or the rest of the assembly process they are never removed.

 

Thanks guys. They are flush and because of the recess area on the back of the spacers I didn't even think twice about them until I read so many posts saying "MAKE SURE YOU TAKE THEM OFF". It looks like the responses are about 70/30 to just let it ride but I would appreciate anyone elses take on it.

 

If you've had your wheels off, the clips were probably taken off.

If there are recesses on the back of the spacers, don't sweat it. If there aren't recesses back there, I'd take the clips off.