Wheel Spacers for Power Wagon (BORA 1.25" / Spidertrax 1.5" Hub-Centric)

The Power Wagon's factory wheel is a 17x8 on the 8x165.1 (8x6.5) bolt pattern, with a hub bore of about 121.3 mm and a deep positive offset in the neighborhood of +45 mm. That high positive offset is why spacers come up at all: it tucks the wheel well inboard toward the suspension, which is fine around the factory 285/70R17 but gets tight fast as the tire gets wider. Go to a 35 and the inner sidewall starts finding the front sway bar end link and the inner fender liner at full lock.

Two ways to fix it:

1. Wheel spacers — $280-$560 for a set of four, roughly an hour of work, keeps the factory wheels (which are genuinely good castings sized around a real 33-inch tire). This guide.
2. Aftermarket wheels with a wider face and less positive offset — $1,200-$2,000. See the wheels guide.

For most owners running 35s on a 3"-class lift, spacers are the right answer. You keep the factory look, you save over $1,000, and the install is inside a beginner's skill range.

A spacer does not change your wheel. It changes the effective offset by exactly its thickness, and understanding that makes the sizing decision obvious rather than a guess.

Effective offset = factory offset − spacer thickness. A 1.25-inch spacer is 31.75 mm, so a factory wheel near +45 mm behaves like roughly +13 mm once spaced. A 1.5-inch spacer is 38.1 mm, taking the same wheel to roughly +7 mm. In practical terms each corner moves outboard by the spacer thickness, so a 1.25-inch spacer at all four corners widens overall track by about 2.5 inches.

That extra track is doing two useful things. It moves the inner sidewall away from the sway bar link and inner liner, which is what buys the tire clearance. And it slightly widens the stance, which marginally improves lateral stability on a tall truck. It also does two less-useful things: it pushes the tire closer to (or past) the fender flare, which means spray, and it increases the scrub radius, which puts a little more effort into the steering and a little more load into the wheel bearing.

Match the spacer to the tire and lift rather than buying the biggest number:

• 1.25" (BORA): 33-34" tires on a leveling kit, or 35s on a 3"-class lift with factory wheels. This is the common Power Wagon size and the one to default to.
• 1.5" (Spidertrax): 37s on factory wheels with a 4-5" lift, or anyone who wants the tire flush with the flare. At this width you are within a few hundred dollars of aftermarket wheels with the correct offset built in — price both before committing.
• Do not stack thin spacers to reach a thickness. One correctly-specified hub-centric spacer per corner.

Check the tire fitment guide for which tire size you are actually solving for before ordering a thickness.

Lug-centric spacers — where the lug studs locate the spacer — are common and cheap, often under $100 a set. On a 7,000-pound truck they are a bad bet. They permit micro-movement under load, the movement works the lug threads, and the failure mode is a cracked spacer or a spacer backing off at highway speed.

A hub-centric spacer has a precision-machined center bore that seats on the hub itself; the lugs only clamp. BORA and Spidertrax are the two reference brands here, both machining the bore to the Ram 2500's 121.3 mm hub register and pressing in their own studs. Verify the bore spec on the listing before buying — a spacer advertised for "Dodge 8-lug" with a generic oversized bore is lug-centric in practice no matter what the title says.

Budget about an hour for all four corners with hand tools.

1. Break the lug nuts loose on the ground, then jack at the frame and set the truck on stands rated for at least 3,500 lb per corner. Never work under a 7,000-lb truck on a bottle jack alone.
2. Pull the wheel and wire-brush the hub face clean. Rust or grit between hub and spacer defeats the hub-centric fit and lets the assembly walk.
3. Anti-seize the factory studs lightly, slide the spacer flush onto the hub — it should seat on the machined center bore, not float on the studs — and start the spacer's inner nuts by hand.
4. Torque the spacer's inner nuts to the spacer manufacturer's specification in a star pattern. Confirm the spacer sits dead flush with no gap anywhere around the circumference.
5. Mount the wheel on the spacer's pressed-in studs, hand-start every nut, then torque in a star pattern to the lug torque value in your owner's manual for your model year.
6. Re-torque both the spacer nuts and the wheel nuts after 100 miles, and again after the first off-road trip. This is the step that prevents the failure people blame on spacers generally.

Spacers get a bad reputation that is 90% attributable to cheap lug-centric parts and skipped re-torques. The remaining real considerations:

Thread engagement. The factory studs now carry only the spacer, and the wheel rides on the spacer's studs. That is correct and safe with a quality part, but it means stud quality is now a purchased item rather than a factory one. Confirm the spacer uses forged studs at the correct thread pitch for your truck.

Bearing load. Moving the tire outboard lengthens the moment arm on the wheel bearing. At 1.25-1.5 inches on a bearing sized for a 3/4-ton truck, this is a small effect, not a scary one — but it is not zero, and it argues against going thicker than you need.

Fender coverage and law. Several states and most Canadian provinces require the tire to be covered by the fender or a flare. Pushing a 35 out 1.5 inches on a truck without flares can put you outside that, and it will throw road spray onto the door glass regardless.

Inspection habit. Add a quick check of the spacer nuts to whatever you already do before a trip. It takes two minutes and closes the only realistic failure path.

Why it works

• The cheapest path to 35s on factory wheels — a fraction of an aftermarket wheel set
• About an hour of work with hand tools
• Keeps the factory 17x8 wheels, which are well matched to a real off-road sidewall
• Hub-centric BORA and Spidertrax parts have a long track record on heavy 3/4-tons

Trade-offs

• Adds roughly 5-8 lb of unsprung weight per corner
• Hub-centric only — lug-centric parts have no place on this truck
• Slightly heavier steering and marginally more wheel bearing load from the increased scrub radius
• Re-torque after 100 miles is mandatory, and skipping it is the actual cause of most spacer failures

Tools required

• torque wrench
• anti-seize
• extension
• wire brush
• jack stands rated to 3+ tons

Parts

Sources

• BORA Wheel Spacers — hub-centric 8x6.5 application
• Spidertrax — hub-centric wheel spacer specs
• Ram 2500 wheel specs — bolt pattern, hub bore, factory offset

Related

• Wheel Upgrade for the Power Wagon — 17", 18" and 20" Options
• What Tires Fit a Power Wagon — and What 'Fits' Really Means on a 3/4-Ton Truck
• Beadlock-Capable Wheels for Low-Pressure Traction
• All Ram Power Wagon guides & tools
• Browse the full DIY database

Written and maintained by an AZ wheeler and driveway wrencher. How we source guides. Always cross-reference your factory service manual — modifications affect vehicle safety and warranty. Work at your own risk.