Well I took some measurements on my 53 and here’s what I got.
The fronts are 7” wheels with a +23mm back set and the rears are an 8” wheel with a +46.5mm back set. If I go strictly by the stamped mm back set, I get a slightly different reading then I do if I physically measure but it does give me a result closer to what I found when I swapped tires and wheels with my Brute. So let’s do that first, then we will do the other way.
So per the converter, a 7” wheel with a backset of +23mm yields a total back space of 4.91”. Remove that from the 7” total and you get 2.09” to the outside. (4.91+2.09=7)
Here’s the pics and the calcs. The pic of the width was out of focus so I deleted it:
Ok, for the rear, It’s an 8” wheel with a +46.5mm backset. This yielded a surprising result but maybe it’s because of the tire width, hub or a-arm position. This results in a 6.33” backset so the offset would be 1.67. (6.33+1.67=8) And its doesn’t look like that at all if you look at the wheel…but even the physical measurements show something like that. Here’s the pics and calcs:
OK, now let’s do it by physical measurements. One has to keep in mind..as I understand it..is that a wheel’s width on an ATV is measured from and to the inside of the beads, not the outside like an automobile's, like this:
http://www.pureoffroad.com/assets/images/Shared/POR/main_images/52_offset.jpgSo when doing this you have to subtract what the thickness of the material is…or what you think it may be. In this case I will guess that the wheels are about ¼” thick. And you always measure from the wheel’s mating surface so for the front I got 4.5” so..4.25” on the back side and 3”..so 2.75” on the front side. This equals 7”. Here’s the pics:
Clearly this may not be the best way to do this. But let’s continue onto the rear.
The rear backset measured 6” so..5.75” and the outset or front side measured 2.5”..so 2.25”. This totaled the 8”. Here’s the pics:
So…there you go. In either case a full +3 will give you more and a +4 would do even better if width isn’t a factor. One thing to always remember though is that on any IRS or machine with a single wheel bearing, you always want wheels that have the first number equal to or larger then the second to maintain proper bearing loading. So..anything like 4+4, 4+3, 5+3, 4+2, 5+2 are all OK to use here.