4"drop axle. 550r16 tires model a. How much total toe with radial tires? Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
As with beaner and chopped51, 1/8" is what I used on my pickup with dropped axle and radials. It drives really well with that setting. - EM
Make sure the 'tech', probably aged 12, knows you want toe in, not toe out as he fits to all the fwd's he only ever sees. Chris
Ha ha. Already had that happen. Gonna do it myself get it right (hopefully) Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I use 1/16 inch and factory caster and camber. I got the tip 57 years ago from a very good Bear alignment man. Bob
Took some scrap square tubing and fab'd up me a trammel for setting toe. Cross-bar comes apart for storage/transporting
I use 2 pieces of small angle iron and a pair of welding clamps, same idea. Make measurements off front and back of rim ( @ 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock) I go 1/8 to 3/16" less in front and run it.
I always went 1/8" on bias ply tires, radials 1/16" to 0". Depending on whose alignment chart you are reading.
When there is camber on a tyre it tries to steer like a cone rolling on the ground .This is known as camber thrust. Toe is a correction for this. Two wheels with positive camber will try to steer themselves away from each other, so they need toe-in. Negative camber is opposite. Positive camber was originally needed for the curvature in roads.
Toe is the equalizer to camber. Positive camber wears outside of tire, negative camber wears inside of tire, Excess toe in wears outside of tire Excess toe out wears inside of tire. So toe is set according to camber, let's say your running +3/4 camber you run toe basically straight up at 0". Now let's say your running -3/4 camber you run 1/8" tie in. In the examples above the positive camber adds outside wear by toeing straight up you actually add a little inside wear by toeing straight up which gives flat tire wear. With negative camber your picking up inside tire wear we add toe in which counter acts the inside tire wear. Toe follows camber. I can align your vehicle and wear your tires out in 15,000 miles BUT make it wear the tires flat or I can align it properly and wear your tires flat and get 60,000 to 70,000 out of a set of tires which we do regularly. Sadly true alignment guys are a dying breed, most today have only basic knowledge thanks to computers. Been doing it for 39 yrs.
1/16 to 1/8 should work. with a rear wheel drive rig you have to have some toe in but then it comes down to what is right for the rig so it tracks right but doesn't try to drag the tire sideways. I aligned front ends as my daily job for most of the 70's and never once heard that you changed the toe in or that it compensated for camber. None of the text books that I have on the subject say that. As far as camber goes normally you want right at 1/4 degree more positive on the driver's side to compensate for the crown in the road. that helps the rig drive straight down the road. The more crown the more difference, less crown the less you run. That is pretty much a regional thing and if you are from Arizona and traveling though the Olympic Peninsula of Washington your car may want to pull to the right a tad but that is because of the difference in the roads there and the ones "back home" The more rain the more crown. In your home area on the roads you drive all the time if the rig wants to drift to one side or the other on a straight flat road it is probably a camber issue. Caster is what helps return the steering to center after making a corner or turn. If it doesn't want to return to center the caster is most likely off if nothing is binding up in the steering. As in the rest of it, too much can be as bad as too little. All that said, I have never had a complaint about tire wear on any rear wheel drive rig with radials that I set at 1/8 inch. A large number of those I saw every 5000 miles for tire rotation so I was able to keep an eye on them pretty well.
On race cars this is easy.....................We use a tyre pyrometer, or if you want to practice "the black art" learn to read the grain of tyres. We measure tyre wear in laps, not 60-70,000 miles. Having the ability to align like that is truly admirable. Caster is "another spanner in the works", With negative Camber and excessive Toe-out in normally wears the inside of the tyre. But dial in too much positive Caster and the wear ends up on the outside of the tyre. I am not a fan of Toe-out, it makes a car unstable on rough roads . A lot of cars with IFS and short upper A-arms get a lot of dynamic negative camber, so a little bit of Toe-out bump steer can counteract the induced camber thrust [ This is a True black art of the handling Holy grail]
Could you explain how this works? I am getting ready to align my 41 ford deluxe pretty soon. Ive ready the other posts where they would measure wheel @ 9 & 3, but i cant get to mine very well with the drop on the car. Thanks Sent from my LG-LS993 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I hate to throw this out there because the discussion on camber is pretty good but most of our cars have the camber set from the factory and heating and bending is the only way we are going to change it. If it has a beam axle just put it up on jack stands ( put them under the axle) I don't use a fixture so my way is probably not going to be acceptable but if you cannot get to 9 and 3 mark your tire with a piece of chalk as far up as you can measure and then measure it on the back side of the axle then roll the tires around to the front of the axle and repeat. If you don't hit 9 and 3 exactly you are still probably going to hit the mark close enough.
On our dirt 1/2 mile car we check it a lot. I'm not going into our settings but Longacre make an excellent device, 2 large aluminum plates and 2 matching measuring tapes. Another great tool.
About 10 years back I had a friend give me a pair of portable turning plates a toe gauge and some camber finders. A basic setup like you could bring to the track or use in the garage either way. I have a friend that I have raced with in the past ( well still sometimes), he plays with a lot of late model stuff and is more likely to use them than I will be so now he has the tools at his place. What I usually deal with is more primitive than that. Basically caster adjustment and toe. When you are in the bull ring or running a dragster that gets driven and needs be adjusted per the track those are important tools. Understanding how caster/camber/toe all work together is a must. It all has to work together to keep you on track and rob as little torque as it can.
My alinement guy had a device that marked the tire. He would spin the tire and hold a pionted, spring loaded “scratcher” up to the center of the tire and scribe a mark all around the tire. This method took wheel variance and tire irregularities out of the equation. And yes even the best tires and wheels wobble a little, just watch the guy spin balancing your tires next time you buy. Most stamped steel wheels have quite a bit of wobble, the machined wheels not so much. If you go off a “same thread” method your toe in could be toe out. Just my experience. Alinement on a straight axle is very important, they have a tendency to have a extreme wobble that can cause a wreck if not properly aligned and in good condition. Bones
Caster is strictly driveabilty/ stability issue. Caster makes the car stable and drive straight going down the road. Caster has a relationship side to side and as long as that relationship is kept then the amount of caster becomes a factor. Caster is best put this way: positive caster is like walking on your heals, negative caster is like walking on your toes. Most 50 & 60`s car ran negative caster as you can turn the car easier but higher speed and the cars want to drift and you don't get much road feel NOW the reason for this was manual steering. Then came standard power steering and cars went to positive caster. As you roll more caster into a car your actually rolling the upper ball joint (or strut mount) back which loads more vehicle weight onto the tires thus making it more stable, more road feel but at a cost, harder to turn but with power steering you don't notice it. One down side of 60`s cars are they are hard to get positive caster into if you convert to power steering. That's why you can buy tube upper arms that increase caster for gm Chevelle, GTO vehicles. Increase caster, increase higher speed stability. This is why you run high caster on your model A`s etc, low weight to plant and hold the tires down so it's compensated by adding caster and forcing vehicle weight onto the tires. Down side to positive caster it has a tendency to scrub the corners of the tires if you do a lot of in town driving and turning, also too much and the car becomes sluggish feeling on the highway. And just like camber you run around 3/8 degree more in passenger side to make up for road crown and make it drive straight. Front wheel drive isn't as touchy about caster as the tires pull the vehicle. Race cars are a whole different set of rules especially dirt track
Porknbeaner we bend them cold. We still have all the old model T and A tooling to do it. I would guess we do 20 to 30 a year. We even bend semi tractor front beam axles but those take 2 110 ton rams. We do 10 to 15 semi`s a week. About 2 hours to bend and align a semi, about 1 &1/2 hours on a straight axle passenger vehicle. It's an art form especially when you have to bend to get and keep the camber relationship side to side. And trailer axles we bend tons of them. Helped Dexter axles out several years ago on helping them set up their camber settings rolling off of their assembly line.
On my 40 Ford I use the 1/16 in. toe in shown for OEM 16 in tires in the 1935-48 Chilton's Manual. Current tires are 5:60x15.
19Fordy, thanks for that info. I want to check/change the toe on my avatar, in hopes that it will handle a little better. I am running bias ply tires all around, and it really grabs the ruts in the road , pretty bad sometimes. I read where some guys seem to have no problems , while others do. I will be waiting for spring before anything happens around here. Just had 4 more inches of snow 2 days ago.---Jim
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