David Menn

Hi Yall,
This is my first time posting so sorry in advance for whatever stupid things i say. I own a 95 2wd 4 cyl pickup and I just got into an accident. I slide out in the rain and hit a curb sliding almost completely sideways at probably 10 miles an hours. I have a bent rear axle and two mangled rims, so I'm going to have to get new wheels/tires and swap a new axle. It doesn't look like anything is bent in the front (I had a mechanic look at it), but there might be. I always thought it would be cool (this is where the stupid part starts) to widebody my truck, but I don't wanna screw anything up with wheel spacers or spend a ˟˟˟˟ton on wide ass tires. Would it be possible to just swap a wider rear axle in there and call it a day? Of course, I would still have to change the front, but that would solve 50% of the issue right? And are there any tips on getting the front wider "the right way", since I hear a lot of bad things about wheel spacers and wheels that are too offset. I wanted to go about 2in wider, so lmk if you think thats dumb as well.
Thanks!

ev13wt

IF you want to have a look like that (not my thing), do a SAS with landcruiser axls or tons.
Should be wide enough!
(Just putting different axles in is one thing. You need to align the properly to the tcase, you need drivelines that you could actually bold on to the third member / diff - hole pattern) Then, does the "new" rear axle have the right diff? If not, then NEVER put it into 4WD on the street unless you REALLY want a completely new drivetrain...)

BUT since you are screwing with the dynamics of the truck that way anyhow, I don't see a problem.
People run 3,75 backspacing 8" wheels and never complain about the ackerman angle, so using a spacer for an inch or so more ain't gonna do anything worse.

So, get your thorns on 10 or 12 by 15" rims and call it a day. After a couple of months, sell it to somebody when you realize you don't like the look either. :p

MaK92-4RnR

The wheel spacer fear is created by morons who don't know how to install/maintain them correct. I SAS'd my rig at 180k miles and i'm at 260k now. Zero issues with them on my front axle.

Robert m

iTrader: (2)

Im pretty sure a 2wd first gen tacoma axle is a little wider then the pickup axle but best bet is to find one and measure it from wheel mount surface to wheel mount surface and also measure how wide the spring perches are but, it should bolt up. If you can find one of them, you could put that in and get the rear width you want.

For the front, that's either going to need extended length arms or wheel adapters. The spacers that have the bad reputation are the ones that just slide over the wheel studs and reduce the amount of thread engagement you get with the lug nuts. The ones you want are the bolt on adapters. They bolt on with lug nuts and have their own set of studs that the wheel bolts to.
I've been running adapters for years on he back of my truck and haven't had a problem. I just use BLUE (not red) loctite to hold them onto the drums and they are fine.

rattlewagon

Run a tundra or t100 axle in the rear, depends on how wide you want to go. Then blazeland up front instead of spacers, and just turn the torsion bars down.

What are your plans for making the body width match the axle width?

ALPHAFERT

You could achieve a wider stance by just getting a lower offset wheel. Looking online the lowest offset that came on the 95 was +15 & a quick check you can get a decent set of wheels around -12 for fairly cheap. That alone would give you about 2in of width without spacers or trying to fit an axle from another vehicle. It would also widen all 4 corners evenly.

The drawback to widening regardless if you do it through spacers or wheels is that the further out you put the wheels the more pressure you put on everything holding the wheels. Your suspension will feel softer & more stress on wheel bearings, bushings & balljoints. On a truck though, I would imagine that none of this would be a big deal as long as you aren't regularly maxing out the load capacity.

If you are just worried about hydroplaning then tires are what you should really look at, losing traction at 10mph is pretty bad. The wider a tire is the further it has to push water out of the way & if you get snow a wider tire has more work to cut through the snow. Sidewall can make a huge difference too, if it's tall & soft as you go around a turn it will give allowing the tread to unsettle resulting in less traction. Also, if you run all seasons they won't give peak traction on colder days until they have warmed up a bit. Winter tires are a soft compound, summers are hard & all seasons are in between. I'm pretty sure most off road are in the realm of all seasons. Higher tread wear tires are also often a harder compound. My tires on my truck are on/off road & are a bit on the hard side. On my ride to work in fall or winter I have to be careful turning out onto a street the 1st half of my drive but no issues the last half. Then again, the tires on my truck are not the greatest. I'm pretty sure the dealership went for the cheap option.

Right now you need 2 wheels/tires and an axle. If you use another wider trucks rear end the leaf springs & shocks may not line up causing the need for fabrication. You would still need to figure out the front as well as widening the body to match. If you don't have the ability on your own you would need to pay someone & finding someone willing to fabricate may be hard. Just getting a set of lower offset wheels & decent tires would be far less of an investment both time & money.

If it were me, I would just fix what is broke & look into wheels & tires.