Hot Rods Cast Front Axle & Tire Wear

As I mentioned above, the only time I have seen extreme wear difference side to side is in areas with high numbers of Roundabouts, providing the vehicle is setup to spec.

 

However this is not a mileage that can be accepted. ( meant to say that earlier )

 

Bingo! My ideal specs also. Thanks @lostone and @Mr48chev

 

As someone suggested earlier, what would happen if the axle was installed opposite from current installation, switched left to right?

 

^^^^^If there is any, the excessive + camber in the axle would be on the LF, loading the outer rib of that tire.


What we still need to plug in before proceeding is:

1. Is the RF tire SCUFFED from toe-in scrub wear?
2. What is the camber setting on the right front?

Camber wear is slow wear rate with no feathering, scuff or scrub wear is fast, with feathering. 6000 miles seems pretty fast to me.

Either could cause the wear, eliminating the other one. Then you would have a course to correct it.

The truck SHOULD, by now, have a drift to the right, which correcting for would accelerate the wear rate on the RF.

FWIW, cross steer will cause the RF tire to wear faster than the LF (even if alignment is perfect) as ALL the steering input goes in to that tire and it has to drag the LF with it. More effort/force equals faster wear. Regularly scheduled R-L Rotation will even it out. Side steer is just the opposite. LF wears more.

My old roadster with the same Vega, hairpin setup did the same thing. Really pissed me off.
Found that the QC rear end was out of square (diagonal four bar), plus the toe setting was a little fat.
Once corrected the old girl would go laser straight, no hands, at any speed, for a quarter mile.

 

@hotrodA is providing more useful alignment & tire wear info than I have seen in previous threads. @Mr48chev & @lostone have stepped up too.

Thanks guys; sure hope this thread finds a reason for krylon32's tire wear.

 

I thought I'd turn them around on the rim and put the worn side on the inside.

That's what I did and it worked great. No problem with NM rules.

 

Tire store won't flip them as they say the excessive wear makes them to dangerous to drive. They're not that bad but neither were the tires on my Colorado when they said the tread was to thin to allow rotation?

 

Maybe the Ackermann is good on the left but not so good on the right...

 

^^^^^HA! I would have to ask “So, are they too dangerous now to drive?”
“Is the steel belt edge wire showing?” That’s the only reason.

 

Good point. A bent steering arm or mismatched pivot lengths could cause an Ackerman change from the built in toe-OUT on turns, but he has toe-IN, if it’s scuffed/scrubbed. It would have to be bad plus him make a LOT of turns in 6000 miles.
The normal amount of scrub in a turn is minimal except for maybe a city delivery vehicle. It’s a short time event, and normally shows up on both edges of both tires. Left, right, back and forth.

Saw that only once, when a bad spindle and steering arm had been replaced with a used one.
The used one came from the same make truck, but with a different wheelbase. FUBAB. Different length steering arm!

 

Changing the camber on my car fixed the same problem on one side.

 

A camber change on a beam axle requires a bend. Gary is unsure about bending the cast steel Super Bell.
However, the existing camber setting is unknown (by us anyway).
Stay ‘tooned for more intriguing adventures into the black magic mysteries of alignment.

 

Although I don't think it's the Bell axle I decided to go to a new forged axle in order to do all the alignment adjustments suggested by lostone. I couldn't do those with a cast axle. I'm also switching to 15 inch wheels & tires on the front. $700 for a pair of 500/16 Excelsiors is out of my price range since retirement. Talked to the shop I use and they'll tear the truck apart enough to get it squared up. Owner did admit I was probably right about it being out of square after the hairpin installation. We'll see, moving on.

 

What a trip!
Like I said earlier, this phenomenon has been observed by me since the 1970's.
There is a lot of over thinking going on here.
Turn up the radio and find something else to obsess over.
It's what these cars do . . . .
The roadster we built for Pete Chapouris' dad in the late 70's does it, as do a lot of other cars I've been around / built.
We just flipped the front tires on this car to get more wear from them.

 

Thanks Pete good advice You mentioned flipping the tires. Apparently there's some NE rule about tire wear and when I went to the tire shop they determined they weren't flip able?

 

I’d find a local younger back to swap them around in your driveway. Guys probably just fishing for some tire sales. If you were closer I’d come help ya.

 

My old brain is vague in the recall department, but way back in my earliest driving years, still dumb as a box of rocks and clueless about what "suspension" was and what it did.......
me and my other clueless ***ociates would do those "hands off the steering wheel tests" on the highway to see if our beaters would hold the line or drift to the left or right. Instinctively, we thought it might relate to tire wear. I personally wasn't smart enough to learn anything from those tests, but I do remember I was hell on tires and went through more than my share.

 

@krylon32
I know your older & if you have a Lift ,
I use the Lift to brake beads with 3-4 foot long 2x4 , weight of vehicle close to
The main post where controls are ,
Cardbord , rug , usually it takes
2-4 spots . I have a old bumper jack I have also used on trailer hitch , I pined the heal to jack ,
Old bubble balancer .
I would prefer a tire shop ,
But Now indays Liability most will not do , or 5 hr wait with tires /wheels in hand . Even try to pay & I do work .
I like the newer Machines
With wheel that run's on bead as wheel rotates and slowly adds pressure and walks it down off the lip.

 

I can move the tires but to do as suggested above the tires have to be removed from the rims and flipped. I don't have a tire machine and balancer. I'll get it figured out. I bet I'll have it done by tomorrow evening.

 

If referring to my post the lift was just to break the tires off the bead and yes tire s****s / ect required..
H -F has a bubble bounce , If you where to purchase , I recommend a known in balance tire or ect to check calibration on bubble, it's adjustable

 

I had the same problem on my roadster, SoCal rolling ch***is with their I-beam axle. I run 15" American Cl***ic bias look radials. At 15,000 miles I flipped side to side and got 3,000 more miles before I replaced them for piece of mind. A long time ago I bought a Harbor Freight manual tire changer. Works pretty good if you aren't in a hurry. I flipped the tires side to side then take them to the local tire shop and have them balanced for $20/set. All frnt. end readings are OK so I just live with it.

 

Interesting thread ;
For the last 40 years all my daily vehicles have noticeably worn first on the outside edge of the left front tyre.
I have never rotated tyres or done wheel alignments.
I just put it down to the rougher edge of the outer road seal, pot holes and my driving style.
Very few straight roads or motor ways where I drive here in New Zealand.

 

Same with my 34. Got a welders series front crossmember set at 7 degrees and a nice tight vega steer box. 1/8th toe in. I buy el-cheapo Walmart radials and live with it.

 

Got the truck up on the lift to do service work and after some study and discussion decided to only flip the tires from side to side. We'll see what happens? Consensus is it's a combination of toe in and being slightly out of square, all probably happened when we changed from 32 bones to P&J's hairpins & 37-40 spindles. and the shop not measuring as carefully as they should have. Good to go now for the minimal amount of time we have left this fall. I'll have it squared away by spring.

 

Sirod! Capri V6, right?

 

YES!!! This right here!!!! We learned using a bumper jack hangin on the front bumper to break the beads and use the tire irons to dismount and remount... 50 years ago...

 

You mention that nothing can be done about the Camber, but I would at least want to know what it is, and if its correct or not. That would seem to be where the problem would most likely exist. Since you have a lot of experience with these type vehicles and haven't mentioned problems like this with any of the many vehicles you have built, I wouldn't think it would be an acceptable/unsolvable problem. Other than that, maybe experiment with your toe in setting when you reverse the tires just to see if it has any effect .......on both tires. Good luck with finding a solution.

As far as reversing the tire goes, get the tire store to break down and remove your tire......then when you get home, remount it yourself and air it up.

 

Since radials became common in the early 70's it has been reccomended to keep them on the same side of the car when you rotate them rather than doing the X rotation that you do with bias tires. While some radials are designed by tread pattern to run on one side of the car or the other being directional it has been somewhat common that radials take a directional set from running on one side of the car and swapping them to the other disturbs that set and can at times cause tire issues. On the other hand I swapped hundreds of radials side to side at times because the tires caused the car to want to pull one way or the other and swapping them side to side often corrected that if the car was in proper alignment to begin with. I used to be able to tell if it was tires or alignment by the feel of it but can't now. That was with brand new tires with very few miles on them though. That was with 1973 firestone tires though.

 

My coupe has TCI frame A tube axle from them. This set of tires is about 9 yrs.old. The right front is showing wear on the edge. Car is over 25 yrs old with 27k miles. Walmart tires never been rotated in the 9 yrs. The car has 4 bar front a rear. The front bushings were replaced about 10 yrs. Axle set at 7 degrees. Did one bar at a time to try to keep it correct.. Think I will switch tires right to left.