What amount of toe in are you guys running on your early Ford front ends? Axle in question is a '40 mounted suicide style, but I doubt that makes any difference. Thanks GV
about the same as me, I try to keep caster between 5-7 and toe should be 1/8 in (smaller at the front) unless I'm running a dirt oval then it's 1/8 out at the front
Radials or bias plies? Radials like 1/8" or so total toe in, bias plies a little more, like 3/16" total toe in.
If you have a power steering box in place of a Vega ( powered cross steer ) could you run more caster?
The question states that it is a 40 axle that is run suicide. Now does that mean you run the axle in front of the spring, or axle in front of the frame? Or does that mean you flipped the spindles and the tie rod runs in front of the axle? What is your definition of a suicide front end? This will also vary with the width of your tires and to some degree the offset of your rim. The more standard approach is somewhere in the 1/16 to 1/8 in, however if you have flipped the spindles you will be forced to run toe out to prevent excessive tire scuff to compensate for reversing the ackerman.
Tie rod behind, axle in front of frame, spring behind axle, cowl steering, early Chevy box, 5.50 X16 bias. Road manners are pretty good but wanders a bit, figured toe in may be off.
No slack in the steering? Lack of caster or loose pieces in the steering are generally what cause the rig to wander.
Some, in the box, everything else is new and tight. I know that is a contributing factor but puting a quick tape on it today looks like they could stand a little more toe in from what has been posted. Just making it the best it can be with the setup at hand, I will address the box issue another time. not sloppy but a little play. BTW thanks for all the responses. GV
Hey T, yea fine tuning it a bit at a time. Love the car,no worries there. Nice to have a few days in Jan/Feb to drive it. Catch ya later. GV
Back to your post #10, you have not indicated what your toe measurement was but I'll ***ume it was in the in 1/8" area. That should be sufficient. Since all the part are in good shape and your concern is an occasional wander, More toe in will not improve anything but increased tire wear. I think you are experiencing tracking sensations common to bias tire usage, if your daily driver has radials they dont exhibit this tracking sensation so its easy to think something is wrong when you hop in your bias ply ride. Just keep even tire pressure and make sure that all the steering components are free of any slack.
A panhard bar removes alot of "wander", keeps the axle from walking back & forth on the shackles unless you dead perch one side.
Run about 15 minutes of toe-in on mine but I don't like the way ti feels so I'm going to reduce it. Had a little toe-out before I corrected it and it was the complete opposite problem. Basically before it would wander over to the side of the road so I used to keep centralised. With the toe-in it does the opposite so I want to straighten them up a bit. Maybe run 7-8 or 10 minutes of toe in max.
Trent, I never got the cycle tires up to highway speed. The new tires are much better at not "climbing" imperfections in the road. I chalked that up to the wraparound tread on the cycle tires. All roads get "rutted" In other words they tend to get pushed up in the center and have low spots where the bulk of the traffic is. If you got too close to the edge of the "rut" it seemed the old tires would grab the side and pull it up. If that made any sense at all. Do you recall where you set the toe in when you put the car together? Yesterday without having someone on the other end of the tape I came out with no dicernable toe in at all. But like I said it was just me with a tape. I figure I can just give it a couple turns, take it out and see if it helps or hurts. Can always change it back Thanks again to everyone for their input.
Something I thought about last night. Wouldn't the diameter of the tire make a difference on the measurement? I mean a 24" tire and a say 28" inch tire both set at 1/8 inch would actually not be set at the same angle due to the difference in the radius. In other words an 1/8" at the end of the radius of a 24" tire would make less of a difference at the hub than the same setting on a 28" tire. Or is it not enough to worry about? Or it could be I'm just way overthinking this.
An alignment check at a shop with a laser type machine is cheap and will tell you lots more than you can possibly measure mechanically. Toe,caster,camber,wheelbase, etc. Money well spent IMO to at least determine your starting point.
Yes, I know, I was just hoping that Jonny69 had some tech week worthy, home brewed, square root of an isosceles triangle type stuff that I could learn about. I mean, come on, did you read about his 'banger build? That's some ingenuity there.
It is an interesting concept, the need to set toe-in. I have always ***umed that you had to bias the front end wheels toward each other just enough, to eliminate play or clearance from the steering and spindle areas. The science of it? Well as I had run a real ****rel front end, w/no specs to base any adjustment on, it was learn as you go. If the toe was set to neutral, or <1/16" then the car would tend to wander...or find pavement ridges and track them. If adjustment was too strongly toe-ed in, then by placing your palm on the top of the tire and drawing it outward as though it was extending the axle, I could feel the sharp (inside) trailing edges of the tire "blocks" in the tread. The mileage would also decrease as the drag went up. The Tech Threads on toe-in guages and simple means of setting camber and caster have been spot-on, framing squares and angle guages do work...if you can find a level floor surface.
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