Wheel Fitment and Spacing Guide
 

Hello Fellow Pelicans :)

I've come across a lot of members who are asking, "Hey! will these wheels will fit my car? or "I found a set of _____,what offset should I be looking at?" or "Just got a set of ____ and now I have wheel rub :( what do I do???" - These are all very important and valid questions to ask when building that perfect car! Not to worry because we here at Pelican got you covered!


I've included some useful info below, but for the our extensive article, check out Wheel Fitment and Spacing.





Clearance: Maximum wheel width is limited by fender and suspension component clearance. In order to select the proper clearance, you will first need to know the distance from the mounting pad to the inboard lip, this is called backspace. With the backspace figured out, you also can figure out your offset using the chart below:



Spacers: Let’s say you found a wheel/tire combo that safely clears everything and looks better aesthetically but you want to either have a little more suspension clearance or bring the wheel a little more square with the fender line. Spacers are a great way to safely accomplish this. Spacers are machined disks that attach to the suspension hub and move the wheel toward the fender line. Using our wheel width example from before, after fitting our new 18x8.5 ET40 wheels, we noticed that even with our increased width we are still not as square to the fender line as we would like to be. Measuring the distance from the fender line to the wheel, we find we have about 16mm of space between them. Using a 4mm spacer, we can move the face of the wheel closer to the fender line, gaining a squarer 12mm clearance between fender and wheel as well as gaining an additional 4mm of suspension clearance.



Custom Offset Wheels: While spacers can be very useful in dialing in a wheel set up, in very large changes of offset it is often a wiser solution to have your wheels customized with an offset tailored to your use. Bolt-on hub spacers have been known to loosen from the mounting hub, so having a custom wheel with the offset provided by the spacer already there can increase the safety of your wheel setup. In addition to changes in offset, custom wheel manufactures can also change factors like wheel diameter and width, the material used, cast or forging process, monoblock or multi piece construction and many other options to give you a truly one of a kind wheel.

another problem with wheels lug bolt size
 

Is not lug bolt size a factor too with wheels? My w126 diesel bolts were 12x.5mm,my w140 is 14x1.5mm. I've heard some AMG's are larger bolts,and SUV's

Absolutely - that's a valuable point. The above guide is a general source of info, but you're correct in that there are other factors as well.

thanks,be nice if we could get those size's as alot of wheels on ebay

I was able to find this on a google search, perhaps it'll be helpful. Not sure if we have a 'master' list with all sizes.

https://www.alloywheelnutsandbolts.co.uk/mercedes-alloy-wheel-bolts-fitment-guide/

This is a catalog that my friend has been working on. Home - Mercedes Wheel Styles Catalog It is very useful in figuring out what style your mystery wheel is and what offset the "S class rimz 4 sell" on facebook marketplace are.

looks good but it won't tell you that w220 wheels yada will fit your w140 fine. what I do is check vehicle lug bolt size they came off of. See E Class amg wheels have 14mm lug bolts, while E's have 12mm

True dat!
 

I got 3 of the 7Jx15 H2 8 hole wheels off an 83 380 SEL at the Greer, SC LKQ yesterday. They are 7" wide. Since they fit an 83 SEL I figured they will work fine on my 85 SE body.


Anyone want to school me on this? Offsets, anything?