I've been noticing some uneven tire wear on the front of my Chevy II, which has a Speedway tube axle. The camber looks to be around -0.5 on the driver side, and -1.0 on the pass side. There is noticeable wear on the inner rib of the pass side tire. I looked up the specs for my old truck, it wants +1.5 degrees camber, with an I beam axle. No, I haven't been coming down hard from wheelies.... Anyone bent an axle to adjust camber? if so, how? I talked to the guy who's father started the oldest car repair shop in town 60 years ago, he said they still have the equipment, but no one knows how to use it.
I've seen it done on an old front end machine with jacks and heavy chains. It will scar them up so any pretty paint will be destroyed. It was at a shop and my Buddy worked for this old man in High School 1972. They would tie it down and pull and chains would creak and pop. Used to do the big trucks that got bent up on the oilfield roads around town too. It would probably have to be an old school shop on a backstreet in a small town to find any one to do it today.
Yup, I worked in one for a while aligning anything from cars to big fire trucks. Chain the axle down, bend the axle using a big bottle jack.
I thought they could only do I-beam axles? Watched my old Econoline get done after I put a V-8 in it and lowered it, back in 71.
The auto body shop my brother works at has done this before on an I-beam equipped vehicle. They have a frame rack which bolts to the ground.
From the above article: While it's not very scientific, a good indicator of proper toe setting is tire wear. Sometimes the wear can be seen, but another way, albeit dirtier, is to run your hand across the tire's tread. If sharp edges are felt while going from outside in, it's an indication that more toe-in is required. If a sharp edge is felt going from inside out, more toe-out is needed. Of course, if the treads feel about the same from both directions, the toe is just right.
Jim is the wear "feathered to one side of the tire" Meaning that if you slide your fingers across the tread you catch the feathering going one way and slide over it going the other. That is the result of excessive toe in or out. If the wear is smooth and more pronounced on one side of the tread it's camber wear. Setting camber on that tube axle might be a bit tricky to keep from damaging the axle. On an I beam you figure out how much you want to change the camber and set your hold down points and the spot you put the jack to move it accordingly.
FWIW, toe is much more critical for tire wear. I do alignments all day on daily drivers. I wouldn't expect -1 to give you a lot of tire wear.
Is this a new build or have you had the car together for a while? I have seen this sort of thing happen when you weld the spring pads onto the axle with weight on the car... the tube axle gets hot and you end up with negative camber. I agree with +1.5 deg of camber and you could even run about +1 to +1.25 with good results. Those tube axles bend pretty easy if you can tie them down with a chain and crank on them a little with a bottle jack. You could even do it yourself if you get a hold of a caster/camber gauge to go onto the hub. These aren't as complex as a modern independent suspension so an alignment rack isn't totally necessary.
The wear does not seem to be feathered. Also bias tires wear strangely compared to radials, on wider bias tires, the 2nd ribs in wears faster than the others. On these skinny 6.00-15s, the outer ribs seem to wear first. I do have some ideas for how to build a relatively simple bending setup for a tube axle, involving steel strap, a heavy 2x4 steel tube, some big bolts, and a fancy saddle made of angle iron and thick plate. But the chain method may be all I need. We'll see what happens. it's been on the road over 10k miles
Has it gotten worse over time or has the camber been off since the beginning? Maybe you haven't had your eye on the camber that close but I thought I would ask.
I think it's been off all along...but I also think it's gotten a bit worse. Maybe I just need a proper heavy duty axle, if I'm gonna put so many miles on the car. This picture is from when I first got it running, almost two years ago. I think it's more noticeable now, I'll take a new picture
That would be camber wear as you suspected. There sure isn't much room outside the spring to tweak the axle a I would on an AD or TF Chevy truck. That's going to be a bit tricky.
I agree that the job can be done on an alignment rack or one of the heavy old center post lifts that were found in service stations years ago using Bobss396's method with a chain and a bottle jack. We did it many times in the old days on straight axle oval track cars, dirt and asphalt. But this was with I beam axles, and I'm ot too sure about doing this with a tube axle. The link provided by Raunchy has a lot of damn good info. The discussion here of "feather" is also very good and I agree that tire wear on the front is usually more a result of toe than of camber. What method/equipment did you use to measure toe, Jim? Considering that you have a tube axle, plus in my opinion, not an excessive amount of negative camber for a car such as yours, I would leave well enough alone on the camber, and pay a little more attention to tire feather and accurate toe measurement.
jim I had a tube axle in the coupe. the camber was set using the chains and jack. it worked out just fine. it did need to be pushed farther than we needed as it would return some after the pressure was taken off.
There is a little too much toe in right now, I use a tram gauge. I'll let the ideas percolate a little while, and see what I come up with. Thanks for all the input, everyone
You could use heat to shrink the tube axle. A small area the size of a oblong dime until it's red hot and let it cool on it's own. I would also take all the weight of the axle and the wheels and tires. I used this method for twenty plus years on pipe and had good results. I also never used anything to cool the weld, it takes a little longer.
Not sure if I misunderstood you or not.... But you said the wear is on the outside edges? If that is true, then the negative camber you quoted isn't the issue. If I'm reading what you said correctly, then the wear is from too much toe in. Time for a road trip up to Canada and I'll check it with a highly accurate piece of equipment.
inside edge, not outside edge. I did say something about skinny bias tires wearing the outer ribs first, but I mean both outer ribs on one tire. On my car, the outer rib on the inside of the tire is wearing faster than the outer rib on the outside of the tire.
Gotcha. Now I understand. Then I see why the wear would be the one degree of negative camber. "Outer rib on the inside" makes sense to me now. So the only question is the wear bad enough to warrant bending the axle. My rambler is hard on tires. But I only run cheap tires because it's a cheap car. If I had expensive tires that were wearing quickly I'd look into bending the axle (I'd look to a truck shop, because I only mess around with stuff I know). But, if I thought tires were last four years or so the way it was, I'd probably just leave it alone.
The tires are just skinny cheap bias plies...but nowadays, that's $150 or so each! not $20 like the good old days. I'm probably going to try using a chain and jack and a few pieces of metal to protect the axle, and see if I can move it. If that doesn't work, I'll see about the old equipment at the shop in town. If that doesn't work, I might make a more stronger home made setup. If that doesn't work, I'll ask the truck place. I just like doing things myself, if you haven't noticed.
I noticed a long time ago. I've noticed how helpful you are to so many people on here. I'm sure with some chain and a jack you can get that one degree change pretty easily. If you can just get it close to around + .5 or so you'll be good. Just remember to reset toe afterwards. A slight change in camber will change toe an aweful lot.
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