Tire mis-alignment - edges wearing

[brian72]

My tires are inflated to about 30psi for the road right now. I am noticing that the outside edge of the tire is wearing REALLY BAD. I adjusted the toe-in but that does not seem to have had an affect. How to adjust that it is not chewing the outer edge.

 

[Steve]

Sounds like your camber may be out and needs to be adjusted.

 

[kntr]

Take it to an alignment shop.

 

[Apogee]

Camber, caster, toe, inflation pressure, ball joint condition, wheel bearings, etc can all cause extreme tire wear. If this is a new condition, I would think that it would most likely be one of the serviceable items listed above. If it's always done this and the bearings/ball joints seem good, then it's probably camber/alignment.

My F150 has a little too much caster, which is hard on both the inside and outside corners of the front tires...but harder on the outside edges. Steering sure returns to center nice though.

 

[brian72]

Sounds like your camber may be out and needs to be adjusted.

All new balljoints, bearings, tires, and stuff...

where is the camber adjusted...

 

[Steve]

All new balljoints, bearings, tires, and stuff...

where is the camber adjusted...

There are two ways to adjust camber on the D44 axles; with special offset threaded sleeves in place of the standard ones for the upper ball joint or with shims that go between the knuckle and spindle. I know I have shims on mine. Looking from the front do the tires appear to be straight up and down or like this: /---\ or \---/ That's what camber is, and it's obvious why tires would wear on an edge if the camber is not correct.

As someone else said, take it to an alignment shop and have them check it. They'll tell you real quick what's wrong. A lot cheaper than ruining tires.

 

[Doyle]

Steve, where did you get the camber shims?

 

[Steve]

Steve, where did you get the camber shims?

Short answer: NAPA carries them, and any alignment shop can get them.

Long answer: I didn't know about this until I completely rebuilt my axle several years ago. I took the spindles off and there was a thin spacer looking thingie between it and the knuckle. I took those off. When I built the axle I put them back on. (You can't tell from looking that they're thinner on one side than the other.) When I got it back together my tires looked like this: /---\ :-[ . I took it to an alignment shop; the old guy took me out in the shop and schooled me on this subject. In my case all he had to do was put the shims on the right way (which required the removal and reassembly of everything down to the bare knuckle) and it was good. Not a cheap lesson, but I learned it well.

Edit: Was just rooting around the web a bit and found these camber shims from Ingalls. They're pretty fancy and more $$$ than what NAPA has, but you can see how they fit and adjust camber from the pic.

 

[kntr]

These help too.

http://www.offroaders.com/info/tech-corner/project-cj7/project-cj7-castor.htm

http://www.cafes.net/epp/CasterCorrectors.htm

 

[bigmuddy]

Steve, when I checked into the ingvall shims where only for the early bronco/chevy bolt pattern and the F-150 ones 79 model were no longer being made. Napa could no longer get the shims and the local alignment guys tell me they are no longer being produced. I finally bought the ball joint adjusters from BCB.