I noticed the rear axle is about 1-2 inches too narrow for the fender.

Is this normal?

Seems like this is why they had such a bad rollover rate..

So my questions are:

1. do wheel spacers damage the car in any way? (bearings, possibly break or something)

2. bad to widen the wheel base?

Basically just wondering the pros/cons of making the wheels look like the vehicle doesn't slam to the ground in the rear (you know how they have to put the wheels in so the fenders can go over them)

 

yes its normal. Look at any 4x4 truck their like this. Maybe not quite as much of a difference but all 4x4s are offset like this. I think it has something to do with the footprint of the truck but I dunno I could be talking out my rear there. But you can run some spacers on the rear I know a few people have done it. Btw our trucks are twins minus the wheels.

 

I was running 1.25 in the back this summer but a few times when i was checking the lugs i noticed a couple of them were starting to loosen up ...not enough to fall off tho. I got tired of tightening them so i took them off. Ive had friends run them with no problem, so maybe you'll have better luck. If you do run them make sure to get good ones use some thread-locker and check them often. Here's what 1.25 looks like on the back

 

Hmm, that looks a lot better, but I would probably want 2" or more.

And I'm pretty sure locktite would fix the issue, if the impact wrench we bought doesn't.

I don't drive the jimmy much anyways now that I live 20 miles from anything significant.

 

like i said some people have no problems with and if youre not driving too much you should be alright. Just in case you want to know what 2.5 in the back and 1.25 looks like

 

yeah i run 1.5" in front and 2.75" in rear spacers to even all 4 tires spacing. No prob so far only thing i noticed is a little tire shimmy in steering wheel so ordered a stabalizer to see if that helps. Also need to get wider tires now but ones i have are new so gonna have to wait bout 60k miles

 

I had them on mine. 2" in the back and 1.25" in the front. No problems at all.

 

yeah torquing them properly helps with them not coming loose. My spacers were recommended to be torqued to 95 ft lbs.

 

So they are safe for daily driving/slight off-roading (torn up roads with many potholes)

People make them out to be a real safety issue.

If they come loose, wouldn't you notice the wobbling and be able to tighten them?

On my 89 s-15 I didn't tighten the rear drivers side lugs and it started to wobble, so I tightened it. This was about 10 miles of stop light/stop sign back road driving though, never freeway.

I pretty much ONLY drive freeway now, or LONG back roads.