Finding the right nonstock wheel offset, tire size width etc
Thread Starter
Pro
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 614
Likes: 0
From: Johnson City Tennessee
Today I pulled the tool out of the box, assembled it & read the directions. Right off the bat I noticed grammatical errors. Keep in mind I can't speell for crap so when I can notice them it's a big red flag! I check the box "made in USA" hummm check the tool "made in USA" hummm. Well, thats all well & good but they skipped the part where the directions were outsourced to China. For me, no matter what tool or part I'm working on, when ever I go the extra mile to actually read the directions & I see broken English that means they are up for interpretation & not worth the paper they are written on & I instantly know this isn't going to go well.....
A note about the tool its self. This thing is cheap flimsy plastic. I knew it was plastic but not floppy like a rag doll, plastic The wire to simulate the tire says 600V on it. Thats common household electrical wire. It works so I cant say anything for not going the extra mile here. However, the wire is nearly imposable to get to snap into place in the cheap plastic slots.
I'm NOT complaining as long as it does the job but seriously, this is a $10 tool at best & with tax & shipping was almost $100. For $100 this really should have been made out of aluminum or something. Again, not complaining, it's the cheapest thing on the market & every other tool out there for this job is either hundreds or thousands. I know it was geared specifically for me, the guy who didn't want to build a tool to do this from scratch. I really don't care that the pretty box cost more to manufacture than the actual tool, really, I don't.
I knew before I bought it that it was made out of plastic, I just didn't expect something quite so flimsy for the extremely overblown $100 price tag. OK, its over priced, WAY over priced, but I can always resell it when I'm done with it so that helps me continue not to complain. I just gotta resell it quick because the price on these things are going bottom out really quick just as soon as its not a brand new tool on the market any more.
So anyway, I'm reading the directions & its going on & on about just measure your tire & wrap the wire around it for the shape etc & I'm thinking lets see here I'm going to measure the wheels & tires "I just bought" & use this tool to see if they will fit. Instead of just spending 5 min trying them on the car to see if they fit & I just bought this tool for what purpose...... no, give me a second, it'll come to me, Ill figure it out I just need a minute... darn, I give up. I'm not sure why I bought it.
So I skim through quite a bit of the directions & get to the end where it says how to achieve additional measurements. AH HA, now I'm getting somewhere, I must be wanting to use this tool in some sort of "advanced" way. No, apparently not. Evidently I need to dig in my tool box & find a tape measure (because in that $100 they charged me they forgot to include one) & then I can get additional measurements.
Now I'm starting to get just a little frustrated. It's got a web site addy on everything so I go there & watch this video...
http://v8tvshow.com/content/view/142/
Good video but run into a lot of the same sophistry about using the tool to measure the wheels & tires that are conveniently sitting right there in front of you. Again, if I had 2 grand to throw around on wheels & tires I'd just try them on the car to see if they fit & wouldn't need the $%^&ing tool! Obviously the makers of this tool made it & totally brain farted on what someone would actually use the tool for, thats to get measurements "before ordering"!
Any way. I'm sure it'll do what I actually need it to despite all the overly simplified videos. You've got to either pull the shocks for allowances in wheel travel up & down OR do some clever multi-jack lifting corner to corner to contort the suspension to extremes like a rock crawler. Showing me how to use the tool on a frame without a body on it is NOT going to work! Showing me how it spins around with a car on a lift is NOT going to work! I'm no expert & I can see that wont work. I can put the car on a lift & put 40 inch super swamper mud grip tires on it & spin the tire without out any clearance issues, its when you put it down on the ground that the fenders are going to rip off & thats the kind of thing Im trying to avoid here & why I bought the tool to begin with.
Im done ranting now.
A note about the tool its self. This thing is cheap flimsy plastic. I knew it was plastic but not floppy like a rag doll, plastic The wire to simulate the tire says 600V on it. Thats common household electrical wire. It works so I cant say anything for not going the extra mile here. However, the wire is nearly imposable to get to snap into place in the cheap plastic slots.
I'm NOT complaining as long as it does the job but seriously, this is a $10 tool at best & with tax & shipping was almost $100. For $100 this really should have been made out of aluminum or something. Again, not complaining, it's the cheapest thing on the market & every other tool out there for this job is either hundreds or thousands. I know it was geared specifically for me, the guy who didn't want to build a tool to do this from scratch. I really don't care that the pretty box cost more to manufacture than the actual tool, really, I don't.
I knew before I bought it that it was made out of plastic, I just didn't expect something quite so flimsy for the extremely overblown $100 price tag. OK, its over priced, WAY over priced, but I can always resell it when I'm done with it so that helps me continue not to complain. I just gotta resell it quick because the price on these things are going bottom out really quick just as soon as its not a brand new tool on the market any more.
So anyway, I'm reading the directions & its going on & on about just measure your tire & wrap the wire around it for the shape etc & I'm thinking lets see here I'm going to measure the wheels & tires "I just bought" & use this tool to see if they will fit. Instead of just spending 5 min trying them on the car to see if they fit & I just bought this tool for what purpose...... no, give me a second, it'll come to me, Ill figure it out I just need a minute... darn, I give up. I'm not sure why I bought it.
So I skim through quite a bit of the directions & get to the end where it says how to achieve additional measurements. AH HA, now I'm getting somewhere, I must be wanting to use this tool in some sort of "advanced" way. No, apparently not. Evidently I need to dig in my tool box & find a tape measure (because in that $100 they charged me they forgot to include one) & then I can get additional measurements.
Now I'm starting to get just a little frustrated. It's got a web site addy on everything so I go there & watch this video...
http://v8tvshow.com/content/view/142/
Good video but run into a lot of the same sophistry about using the tool to measure the wheels & tires that are conveniently sitting right there in front of you. Again, if I had 2 grand to throw around on wheels & tires I'd just try them on the car to see if they fit & wouldn't need the $%^&ing tool! Obviously the makers of this tool made it & totally brain farted on what someone would actually use the tool for, thats to get measurements "before ordering"!
Any way. I'm sure it'll do what I actually need it to despite all the overly simplified videos. You've got to either pull the shocks for allowances in wheel travel up & down OR do some clever multi-jack lifting corner to corner to contort the suspension to extremes like a rock crawler. Showing me how to use the tool on a frame without a body on it is NOT going to work! Showing me how it spins around with a car on a lift is NOT going to work! I'm no expert & I can see that wont work. I can put the car on a lift & put 40 inch super swamper mud grip tires on it & spin the tire without out any clearance issues, its when you put it down on the ground that the fenders are going to rip off & thats the kind of thing Im trying to avoid here & why I bought the tool to begin with.
Im done ranting now.
Last edited by MrGoFaster; Oct 21, 2010 at 04:33 PM.
Team Owner
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 40,422
Likes: 792
From: Redondo Beach, California
Also....that round metallic object that tires are mounted on is called a "wheel," not a rim. Why do people want to call wheels, rims. Look up the definition of "rim" in the dictionary. A rim is an "edge." For instance the phrase, the "rim of the Grand Canyon." For instance, I'd think the correct use of words would be to say, for example, a 17 inch wheel with 9 inch rims. I think that saying, for example, 17 inch rims, 9 inches wide, is not the correct use of words. My opinion.
Last edited by 68/70Vette; Oct 21, 2010 at 04:57 PM.
Thread Starter
Pro
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 614
Likes: 0
From: Johnson City Tennessee
Well, just for fun I decided to play with the tool. I figured the simplest way to do that was to do the multi-jack rock crawler position & try playing around with the rear because the rear has less variables.
First I jacked up the car & put a jack under the rear shock.
Let it down nice & easy allowing it to settle & slide around on the floor just a little as the wheel went up.
Then I carefully jacked up the opposite corner of the car as high as it could go. This puts as much of the cars weight as possible on the rear to get the axle as high up as possible. Because lets face it, not all roads are perfectly smooth & I just might bottom the car out going over hump in the road too fast getting a little air.
Heres that rock crawler thing going on where you can see 2 wheels are high & 2 are low. This cars suspension is ALL out of shape & thats exactly what I'm going for.
With the front driver side jacked up the back passenger side is way up in the wheel well simulating that I just landed after jumping over a small river & landing hard just like in Smokey & the Bandit BUT without totaling the car.
With the intention of bottoming out the suspension on this corner I realized that on my particular car it just couldn't be done today because I'm missing the rubber bump stops. Until I install them, thats the end of any hopes of any kind of accurate measurements for today. That being said, its already up in the air so I figured I'd play with my new tool anyway.
In order to turn the rear rotor I just put a breaker bar in-between two lugs & spun it easy. Although everything felt secure, having my hands in there with tones of pressure going on made me weary very quickly because this jack stand isn't actually sitting on much. I decided that in the interest of safety Id put another jack under the frame so that just in case something slipped everything wouldn't come crashing down on me, at least not as bad anyway. The gray jack is just touching snug against the frame. its not actually holding the car up. if the jack stand slipped, it would hold the frame of the car up & hopefully keep me from getting squished. With this in mind I was always cautions about where my body was in relation to the car, just in case.
A little safety out of the way & it was time to play with the tool. Right away I could see where the point of proper back spacing was going to come into play. Every where on the backside is clear except for a hump where the suspension arm connects to the frame. If this wasn't made this way I could get another inch of tire in there easy but it is what it is & thats the point I have to deal with.
This is my finger pointing at the spot that if the tire is going to rub, this is the spot where its going to do it.
Spinning the tool on around I spotted where it would rub the inside of the fender with the other side of the tool. Without the rubber bump stops I cant really figure anything accurate out right here just yet for tread width.
This is me pointing at stuff again.
Now I'm pointing at the same thing but from another angle. I sure do point a lot. Some people think pointing is rude but I really don't care what they think.
From here on I started snapping pictures because I thought I might actually be getting somewhere but I found out that how tight the lugs are attaching the tool to the car can throw it off by an entire inch. AN INCH! When I'm trying to be accurate within a 1/4 of an inch. Basically, long story short, I said a few 4 letter words about this thing being made out of rubber instead of metal when I'm trying to measure & gave up till I get some bump stops. Consider the following pics just close ups of how the tool measures & the numbers you see mean absolutely NOTHING!
First I jacked up the car & put a jack under the rear shock.
Let it down nice & easy allowing it to settle & slide around on the floor just a little as the wheel went up.
Then I carefully jacked up the opposite corner of the car as high as it could go. This puts as much of the cars weight as possible on the rear to get the axle as high up as possible. Because lets face it, not all roads are perfectly smooth & I just might bottom the car out going over hump in the road too fast getting a little air.
Heres that rock crawler thing going on where you can see 2 wheels are high & 2 are low. This cars suspension is ALL out of shape & thats exactly what I'm going for.
With the front driver side jacked up the back passenger side is way up in the wheel well simulating that I just landed after jumping over a small river & landing hard just like in Smokey & the Bandit BUT without totaling the car.
With the intention of bottoming out the suspension on this corner I realized that on my particular car it just couldn't be done today because I'm missing the rubber bump stops. Until I install them, thats the end of any hopes of any kind of accurate measurements for today. That being said, its already up in the air so I figured I'd play with my new tool anyway.
In order to turn the rear rotor I just put a breaker bar in-between two lugs & spun it easy. Although everything felt secure, having my hands in there with tones of pressure going on made me weary very quickly because this jack stand isn't actually sitting on much. I decided that in the interest of safety Id put another jack under the frame so that just in case something slipped everything wouldn't come crashing down on me, at least not as bad anyway. The gray jack is just touching snug against the frame. its not actually holding the car up. if the jack stand slipped, it would hold the frame of the car up & hopefully keep me from getting squished. With this in mind I was always cautions about where my body was in relation to the car, just in case.
A little safety out of the way & it was time to play with the tool. Right away I could see where the point of proper back spacing was going to come into play. Every where on the backside is clear except for a hump where the suspension arm connects to the frame. If this wasn't made this way I could get another inch of tire in there easy but it is what it is & thats the point I have to deal with.
This is my finger pointing at the spot that if the tire is going to rub, this is the spot where its going to do it.
Spinning the tool on around I spotted where it would rub the inside of the fender with the other side of the tool. Without the rubber bump stops I cant really figure anything accurate out right here just yet for tread width.
This is me pointing at stuff again.
Now I'm pointing at the same thing but from another angle. I sure do point a lot. Some people think pointing is rude but I really don't care what they think.
From here on I started snapping pictures because I thought I might actually be getting somewhere but I found out that how tight the lugs are attaching the tool to the car can throw it off by an entire inch. AN INCH! When I'm trying to be accurate within a 1/4 of an inch. Basically, long story short, I said a few 4 letter words about this thing being made out of rubber instead of metal when I'm trying to measure & gave up till I get some bump stops. Consider the following pics just close ups of how the tool measures & the numbers you see mean absolutely NOTHING!
Last edited by MrGoFaster; Oct 21, 2010 at 07:35 PM.
