It is becoming a well known issue with the patrols... I swapped from the OEM alloys to the patrol steelies when I fitted the SSTs. The guy at the fitment center wanted to make 100% sure that the steelies were standard patrol fitment. Asked me twice if I was sure they fitted as the spiggot sizes are different on patrols.
Gad everyone is OK!! Definitely a brown trousers moment!!!
Yeah ... well handled Tinus..... I would have thought it was more of a boxer shorts to g-string moment....hahaha
On a serious note though. Any aftermarket or replacement rim HAS TO FIT FLUSH with the hub. If there is any dirt or small stone etc, then the rim will not sit flush and the wheel nuts will work their way loose. The other very important thing is to ensure that the inside diameter of the rim fits properly over the small radius of the hub. This was the reason why I made up the spacers for the Patrol hubs a few years back. However there are other issues that can arise by fitting the spacers.
Weirdly on my Patrol with the mags that I have on, I have just under the recommended number of turns on the wheel nut to hold the rim on the hub ( I cannot remember exactly at the moment, but I think there should be 10 full turns on the wheel nut and I have 8.5 or something like that ), This being said, Nissan was very clever here compared to other manufacturers. Nissan uses a 1.25mm pitch stud vs others using a 1.5mm pitch. This in my opinion gives you a way better attachment than a 1.5mm pitch wheel nut ( Peter will correct me if I'm wrong ). On some of the guys that took the spacers there seemed to be slightly less turns, which would mean needing to change wheel stud lengths. This was unknown to me as I worked off of my Patrol for sizing. Mine have been on now for many years now, and so far all is good. Never had to re-torque up any of my wheel nuts.
A second point is that correct wheel nut torque is a VERY important thing. Before putting the rim back on the hub, make sure the rim face AND hub face is CLEAN. Many fitment centers will also use a air rattle gun to put the nuts back on. If you see this stop them before they even pick up that tool.... ONLY a torque wrench should be used. If they use a wheel spanner, then tell them to check with a torque wrench, or do it at home asap. This doesn't happen often, but can cause SERIOUS injury if things go wrong.... You don't want to see a Patrol doing the "Moose Test", I think it will make the old Fortunas look very stable.
On a side note, the main reason for the spacers I made was to allow me in case of emergency to use any 6 hole rim from another vehicle should I ever be in that position. It also helped a tiny bit to stop the 33" muddies I had on from rubbing on the body under full articulation.
The spacers i made up originally were 6mm thick. I can talk to Juice ( Greg ) to see what the costs would be to make up a 2mm spacer that will compensate for the small radius on the Patrol hub, but to make it cost effective, one would need to make up a good few sets of 4.
The other option is to have the rims machined to compensate for the Patrols hub radius.
Assuming you don't have a lot of stuff on the roof or a huge lift, the Patrol is actually very stable.
I had a rear wheel fall off a while ago (not sure why but it wasn't this issue as the were Nissan OEM rims), on the freeway at 120, and it was very stable. Front is obviously worse except that the front disc ends up like a mega-space-saver, whereas the rear disc turns side-on and jams and becomes a serious brake.
Although I have heard claims opposite to Cedric's (ie that Cruiser studs are stronger than Patrol studs) I agree with Cedric. Assuming the same material and reasonably tight machining tolerances, a finer thread is stronger than a courser one. But the disadvantage is that it is easier to cross-thread a fine pitch, thus you need to take a bit more care when starting the nut.
I personally believe correctly machining the rim to fit on the hub is a better solution than spacers as the wheel studs then don't carry the car, they just hold the wheel on, but then again 24 M12's are more than enough to carry the car.