My chain line was off by about 7mm (the cog was inside, or toward the middle, from where the chainring was) and was occasionally making noise and giving resistance.

I ordered some various sized hub spacers (3mm, 2mm, 1.5mm & 1mm) to work to improve the issue. I started out by putting on just one 3mm spacer. This improved my chain line to an error of only 4mm. The trade off is that the lock ring doesn't go fully onto the threaded hub. With the 3 mm spacer it's more like 90% threaded onto the hub. Will this cause any problems? I have been riding it like this and haven't had any problems yet with the lock ring coming loose. How far unthreaded can you go before expecting problems with the lock ring coming loose too easily?

Even with a 3mm spacer I still have some occasional (but thankfully less than before!) chain line noise & resistance. I'd like to add more spacers but I'm wondering how far I can go. I'm thinking to add a 2mm spacer and see if I have a better balance between lock ring & chain line. Then the fixed side would only be off by 2mm.

Incidentally, the freewheel side is already off (also inside) by about 2mm. I haven't taken the cranks off or the bottom bracket out of this bike yet so I don't know what's in there, but when I do, I'm hoping I'll be able to move the chainring in 2mm so that both sides would be more or less dead on. But until then it would be nice to solve this without investing in a crank puller &/or a new bottom bracket.

Any comments, clarifications or suggestions would be much appreciated! Rules of thumb about chain line tolerances would be helpful as well.

If it's relevant, my chain is 1/8" (is it true 1/8" chains are more susceptible to bad chain line issues?)