What will / won't rub

[SHoppe715]

Back to the spacer debate. I don't see that a 5" backspaced rim with a 1.25" spacer would cause any more strain on the bearings than a 3.75" backspaced rim with the same tire. Think about it. The force is being applied to the bearing from the tire's center of gravity. (making the bearing the lever fulcrum) You have to move the force further away from the fulcrum (less backspacing/positive offset/whatever you wanna call it) to increase the force and it doesn't matter how you do it. That's why most OE rims are backspaced a bit more than 1/2 their width (negative offset). It puts the tire center closer to the bearing which obviously is a bit behind the wheel mounting surface.

The issue is having more hardware in a high stress area meaning more to possibly fail. As long as they're put on right, though, odds are nothing would ever go wrong.