Hi Pearl,
Heres the response to the previous post that you made about these wheels. If any of this does not make sense, let me know and I will try to explain it further. Also, I should probably add that by installing spacers you are effectively changing the offset/backspace.


Check out this web site. http://www.wheeladapter.com/
Call the manufacturer of the spacers and ask what the center bore is. If the center bore of the spacers is the same or larger than the center bore of the stock steel wheels (2 13/16"ish), your golden. If not, ask them to make your spacers with the correct center bore. The minimum thickness for a bolt on spacer is right around 1" (as far as I know anyway). For your 1/2" needs, you will have to install longer studs and run slip on spacers. I have 1/2" slip on spacers on the back of my Vanagon (with longer studs). They have been on there for years and I have never had a problem with them.


In the upper right corner of the previously mentioned web site there is a deal on how to measure your backspacing.
On my car, I have tried a set of 15X7 wheels with 205/70/15 tires on them. These wheels have a 3 3/4" backspace. My car is lowered a bit (not sure how much. Center of the fender lip to the ground is 25.5" on the front and 26" on the rear) and the tire would rub the rear of the fender lip on a super huge bump. With good shocks I don't think that it would ever happen, but it could. Therefore, I don't think that I would run anything less than 3 3/4" of backspace. Measuring to the inside of the rear fenderwell indicates that a 15x7 wheel with a 205/70/15 tire could have a maximum of 4 3/4" of backspace.

If you need to know the offset, subtract the wheel center line from wheel backspace to get offset. If backspace is less than the wheel centerline the offset is negative. If backspace is greater than the wheel centerline the offset is positive. Your original Volvo wheels had a 1" (25mm) offset. The closer that you can come to this offset the less you will effect the steering geometry. Close is good enough, but if you go too far away from stock you will experience some negative handling and steering effects. With 4 3/4" of backspace on a 7" wheel you would have 3/4" (19mm) of offset. This is obviously about as close as you are going to be able to come to the stock offset.


What I would do if I were you is to measure the backspacing of the Jeep wheels and then subtract the thickness of the spacers that you are considering. This will give you the final backspacing numbers. Then convert that number into the offset so that you can compare with stock. Example: if I were to add 1/2" spacers to my wheels, the backspacing would change from 3 3/4" to 3 1/4", pushing the wheels out of the wheel openings by an additional 1/2".

In addition to making the hub portion of the wheels fit, part of this equation that you will have to figure in is the exact size of tire that you plan to run on these wheels. If you were to run a 195/50/15, you would have a lot more clearance than if you were to run a 225/65/15.

I hope that this isn't too much information, but I hope that it helps.

Chris"