rubicon4wheeler
Jeep Newb
I'm looking to upgrade to 37x12.5R17 or 38x13.5R17 Milestar Patagonias and I am having trouble finding accurate information on tire fitment, specifically tire rub on the inner fenders, sway bar, and lower control arms.
I currently have OEM Rubicon 17x7.5 wheels on 1.5" Spidertrax wheel spacers, which effectively reduces my backspacing from 6.25" to 4.75". I have no tire rub issues with my 35x12.5R17 Cooper Discoverer ST-Maxx's (MetalCloak 3.5" springs). One of my buddies has 37x12.5R17 Nitto Ridge Grapplers on 17x8.5 AEV Pintlers with 5.25" backspacing, and his tires rub pretty significantly. He had no tire rub with his last set of tires, which were 35x12.5R17 BFGoodrich M/T KM2s (3.5" AEV springs).
Obviously, the standard 4.75" backspacing of most aftermarket Jeep wheels will be fine for the 37x12.5's I'm looking at, but I'm concerned that the 38x13.5's will require less than that to keep the front tires from rubbing when stuffed/steered. There are a handful of 4.5" backspaced wheels on the market, but I'm wondering if that would even be necessary. Does anyone here have some experience-based advice? I'd like to run as much backspacing as possible to minimize the scrub radius and the load on the balljoints, but I don't want to deal with tire-to-metal rubbing either. I can adjust my bumpstops, but I'd like to retain as much uptravel as possible. I've picked up some MCE fenders to open up the wheelwells and I plan to upgrade to MetalCloak's control arms to properly center the rear axle. I'm also aware that I will need to trim the pinch seams to gain some more fender clearance as well. But before I buy new wheels, I need to make sure I'm getting ones of the right dimensions to keep the tires off the parts that I can't do anything about.
I currently have OEM Rubicon 17x7.5 wheels on 1.5" Spidertrax wheel spacers, which effectively reduces my backspacing from 6.25" to 4.75". I have no tire rub issues with my 35x12.5R17 Cooper Discoverer ST-Maxx's (MetalCloak 3.5" springs). One of my buddies has 37x12.5R17 Nitto Ridge Grapplers on 17x8.5 AEV Pintlers with 5.25" backspacing, and his tires rub pretty significantly. He had no tire rub with his last set of tires, which were 35x12.5R17 BFGoodrich M/T KM2s (3.5" AEV springs).
Obviously, the standard 4.75" backspacing of most aftermarket Jeep wheels will be fine for the 37x12.5's I'm looking at, but I'm concerned that the 38x13.5's will require less than that to keep the front tires from rubbing when stuffed/steered. There are a handful of 4.5" backspaced wheels on the market, but I'm wondering if that would even be necessary. Does anyone here have some experience-based advice? I'd like to run as much backspacing as possible to minimize the scrub radius and the load on the balljoints, but I don't want to deal with tire-to-metal rubbing either. I can adjust my bumpstops, but I'd like to retain as much uptravel as possible. I've picked up some MCE fenders to open up the wheelwells and I plan to upgrade to MetalCloak's control arms to properly center the rear axle. I'm also aware that I will need to trim the pinch seams to gain some more fender clearance as well. But before I buy new wheels, I need to make sure I'm getting ones of the right dimensions to keep the tires off the parts that I can't do anything about.