I want to correct Pat that the reason to use plastic spacers is not because the plastic is ‘crushable’, but because the metal spacers have bearing seat but the plastic spacers doesn’t.
If you can cut the bearing seat of the spacers, you can use them the same way the plastic spacers do. I did once tried sanding the bearing seat enough, then overcrank without the spacers, put them together to essentially create Raider-ex. It worked, but not worth the time.
The normally modded Raider essentially have ‘floating spacers’, it’s not the spacers that holds the halves together like the unmodded Raider, but it’s the axle itself. When you crank you’re actually crushing the raised part of the axle into the nuts.
Beware, the new white plastic spacers have bearing seat and they can not be used to mod the Raider/Fireball, unless if you have access to a lathe and cut the bearing seat but when you can do that just make your custom spacers yourself and save the hassle.
There are a few versions of the spacers:
- First gen white, which is the one on the tutorial. These are tall so they need sanding.
- Black spacers, perfect height, you don’t need to sand them.
- White somewhat new spacers from around 2012 I guess, the same as black spacers you don’t need to sand them.
- The new white spacers from 2015-ish, have bearing seat. You can use it only if you can cut the bearing seat. If you try cranking with these it will either break the Raider/Fireball, or if you’re ‘lucky’ they will simply jam into the bearing and lock it.