My 32 straight axle car is wearing both tires on the Outside prematurely. I this a product of worn kingpins and bushings or is another shim/adustment issue. I am ignorant on straight axles and need advice on where and what I have that is causing this. It seem to start when I bought new front wires and change the offsets to get away from the rotors. thanks for any enlightenment or advice. Larry
I agree with what others have said, check the toe. If it was worn king pins/bushings, you (in theory) should see wear on the inside edge of the tire.
So your new wheels moved the tires out farther (more offset)? That would induce more scrub. Might be the problem.
Look up and read about Ackerman . It will tell you all about the geometry of the front end. For starters the angle of the King Pin should be to the center of the tire on the ground . JMHO.
No expert here but that feathering on the worn side I think points to toe issues. Measure / get checked. Should be in the 1/8"toe in ballpark. Pics with a straight ahead view of the inside of the wheel would help get a view of any scrub issues. Chris Sent from my SM-T515 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
When you have a driver, look hurts, on my 48 I used very little backspace rims so the wheels matched the rears but I got the same wear as you until I went to a normal rim with mounting in the middle of the rim. My two straight axle cars have normal center mounting rims and I don't have any unusual wear on them. Another reward was the car drove better too.
Instead of asking for blind speculation , either take it to someone who understands how to do an alignment ( not read what the computer says) or learn to align it yourself , save a bunch of guessing !
@ important things you left out... 1 How does the car drive/handle? 2 How many miles on those tires? If the car drives/handles well and the tires get wear like that after 10-15 thousand miles, I'd say you can just live with it...and buy new tires every couple of years. Straight axle cars are not always the easiest to get dialed in
Why would he “live” with it? It’s not rocket science. Do it right, as said before, find a real alignment guy. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Sometimes it IS rocket science, and unless you've built a few transverse spring, straight axle cars, it all looks easy. You're dealing with a mix of non OEM engineered parts with a non-adjustable camber/king pin inclination. All you have for adjustment is caster, toe, wheel width/offset and tire height/width. Getting all those just right isn't always easy. Took me 3 years to finally get this front axle/tire/rim combo dialed in...handling like a go-cart on rails, but had a little outside tire wear. Worth the trade off, and learned to live with it.
thanks to all, will have the toe dialed in professionally and also all new Moog tie rod ends. My Bear guy has been doing it since the sixties and can set toe but is not allowed to bend axles any longer .
Unless you're positive its a forged , not cast axle , do not attempt to bend it in any way , shape or form !
<My Bear guy has been doing it since the sixties and can set toe but is not allowed to bend axles any longer> Explain, please. 'Not allowed' by whom? (That's the camber adjustment) *Sorry, just re-read title. Superbells were cast, not forged. Except for the tubes...
Ok, since it seems as though your assumption is I don’t know what I’m talking about I’ll leave it at that. I prefer things to be correct and don’t like settling for tire wear and living with it, but that’s just me. Each to their own. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Geez man, you're a little touchy. That was a general post...if I was directing it towards you, I would have made a "reply"...which I didn't. But now that you mention it, I see all 5 of your cars in your profile probably have a factory spec. sheet that you can take to the alignment shop...and do it right. Now, as an automotive instructor, do you honestly believe a guy in his garage can take a dropped axle, different spindles & kingpins, aftermarket spring, adjustable spring perches, 4 bar set-up, steering damper, different steering box, aftermarket rims/tires, and expect them all to work perfectly together? They won't...you go to the alignment shop (in my case about 10 times) with NO spec sheet, and it's all guess work. Sometimes you get lucky and (HAMB suggested) specs. work pretty good. Rarely, if ever, will all those different parts work together in perfect unison...too many variables and too few adjustments (only caster & toe)...and that's why I sacrificed a little tire wear to get a terrific driving hot rod. That's as "right" as that mix of components was ever going to get.
May I suggest getting a Pete&Jakes catalog. They have a great article on how to lign up these front ends. I had the same problems you do until installed I all new front end bushings. I got them from P&J...............
That’s why I said find someone who actually understands alignments... Also just because that’s what I have listed doesn’t mean that’s all I have worked on. In my mind if using parts together doesn’t allow adjustments necessary, such as a cast axle that can’t be bent to adjust camber, than it isn’t “right”. Again just me.. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
I give up...some guys just like to be... Anyway, myself and the other 10 thousand Superbell axle owners who didn't get it "right" either, will just have to suck it up and deal with your disapproval.
Ok, I’m really worried about it, I’m quite happy, there are a lot of things done that aren’t right...have a look at the cowl steering thread. I guess I’m difficult because I don’t believe a car should scrub tires off prematurely. I’m fine with that. Like I said, each to their own Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Not to discount the feathering, but if you originally suspected camber, have you actually measured the camber you've got? It camber turns out to be the cause or a contributing cause, there are other ways to fix it than bending the axle. Using different spindles or remachining spindles would work as well. Early Fords tended to run less camber than was the norm at the time because the transverse leaf spring setup provided a wider effective spring base than contemporary parallel-leaf systems, and therefore required less compensation for rear weight transfer.
Krylon32 nailed it. If you slide your fingers over the tread you can feel that the tread is pushed to the inside, You can see that it is worn off on the outside of the tread bars and that there is a pushed out sharp edge on the inside meaning excessive toe in. Your fingers will catch on the feathered edges of the tread pulling towards the outside and slide over the tread sliding towards the inside. That's not to say you might have slightly excess camber but I don't think you can do much with that axle as far as correcting it if it is off. Desirable would be 1/2 + on the left and 1/4 + on the right or 1/4. 1/16 to 3/16 on the toe in. If you are going to do the toe in adjustment yourself raise the tires a few inches off the shop floor, get something solid to steady your hand and hold a pencil to the center of the middle bar of the tread and scribe a line all the way around the tread as you slowly spin it with the other hand. That gives you an accurate place to measure from as it compensates for any runout in the tire and wheel. I've done hundreds of them that way in a shop where I only had a caster camber gauge and a bare bones front end rack and a tape measure.
Had similar tire wear on my solid axle Deuce. After replacing king pin bushings I took it to a recommended alignment shop. He sent me to his competitor. I specified I wanted 1/16 to 1/8 inch toe-in. Young fella said he could do degrees not inches. Took it home and set it myself using a framing square and tape measure. Set to 1/16 in, easily. That seemed to solve the tire wear problem.
Have all the old toe-in tools that were spring loaded & locked in to rims gone the way of the Do -Do bird ?
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