Front tyres scrubbing outside edges

[KevinR]

After fitting new tyres and having an alignment carried out by a regular tyre shop I found after 1500-2000 miles that the nearside front wheel had badly worn on the outer edge. I replaced the tyre and had a fresh alignment done by a good garage that I trusted. They set the toe in to 1° toe out as they said rear engine, rear wheel drive would push the toe in to straight ahead. We have just covered about 2000 miles on a European trip and I have found that the fronts are now scrubbing off both outer edges of the fronts. What could cause this, could it be camber?

Our bus has had a lot of work carried out by a respected air cooled specialist, she has type 2 detective shocks all round and no worn bushes etc?

Any ideas please?

 

[ozziedog]

I’ve not heard of that analogy before. As yours has proven, toe in is required unless there are some drastic alterations to the vehicle. From memory a half degree toe in is all that’s needed although any toe in is better than toe out. I’ll look up the exact measurements required when I get home from work today. Shock absorbers shouldn’t have any bearing on the matter unless they’re mangled. It’s easy enough to do yourself with a string line or two and making a parallelogram then measuring in from that. Try it first and see if you can get the toe out reading then you’ll know exactly hiw much to move it.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,there’s a lot to be said for stock

 

[neilswheels]

ive got a similar issue with mine. On mine its camber that was wrong, but on setting up, foind out it cant be dialed out completely to factory spec, possibly due to a bent arm or the dropped spindles, On mine it was the offside tyre, wiped out the inside in about 1000 miles. Ive had them set the best that can be, i'll keep an eye on it, see what happens.

 

[ozziedog]

ive got a similar issue with mine. On mine its camber that was wrong, but on setting up, foind out it cant be dialed out completely to factory spec, possibly due to a bent arm or the dropped spindles, On mine it was the offside tyre, wiped out the inside in about 1000 miles. Ive had them set the best that can be, i'll keep an eye on it, see what happens.

With dropped spindles, I found that setting the camber to maximum was more than good enough. I did however have tyre scrubbing issues when I first fitted my reversed ball joint spindles when I lowered it. I’m trying to remember exactly what was wrong , and not fitted properly by me.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,, I’ll keep scratching my head and somethingll po out.

 

[ozziedog]

Just had a look back at that lowering thread. It would appear that I hadn’t flipped over the track rod ends. As soon as I sorted that and redid my front wheel alignment (tracking) all was well in the land of the lowered.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,but now I is raised

 

[KevinR]

I have checked my front wheels roughly with a spirit level (we are away in Holland so have limited resources) and both front wheels definitely have positive camber so I believe this is causing the outside scrub we are getting.

 

[Clem]

With dropped spindles, I found that setting the camber to maximum was more than good enough. I did however have tyre scrubbing issues when I first fitted my reversed ball joint spindles when I lowered it. I’m trying to remember exactly what was wrong , and not fitted properly by me.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,, I’ll keep scratching my head and somethingll po out.

When I first got my flipped spindles, Paul @ T2D advised setting maximum camber was the way forward. I still ended up scrubbing some tyres whilst I went on a journey of tracking setting but got there in the end. reversing toe in and using guages in reverse as the van was too low to do it normally was always loads of fun.

 

[neilswheels]

Just had a look back at that lowering thread. It would appear that I hadn’t flipped over the track rod ends. As soon as I sorted that and redid my front wheel alignment (tracking) all was well in the land of the lowered.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,but now I is raised

I should clarify, they are

With dropped spindles, I found that setting the camber to maximum was more than good enough. I did however have tyre scrubbing issues when I first fitted my reversed ball joint spindles when I lowered it. I’m trying to remember exactly what was wrong , and not fitted properly by me.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,, I’ll keep scratching my head and somethingll po out.

I should clarify, mine are reversed BJ spindles, not dropped spindles. What difference would flipping the tierods make? I guess it would make them more horizontal, but isnt that more of a bump steer thing rather than camber?

 

[67panel]

Ackerman angle as well , remember one wheel turns sharper than the other . You need to put it on degree plates to measure, also Akerman only works up to 30 degrees so after that it will scrub the inner edge. Used to try and explain that to customers, must be something wrong they say and I would ask do you turn around in your road the same way every time.

 

[ozziedog]

I should clarify, they are

I should clarify, mine are reversed BJ spindles, not dropped spindles. What difference would flipping the tierods make? I guess it would make them more horizontal, but isnt that more of a bump steer thing rather than camber?

Yes mine were reversed ball joint spindles too. As Dav says about the Ackerman angle ^^^ , it’s not just when you are stationary which is why it took me so long to figure it out. I’d set both sides to maximum camber with that funny off centre conical thingy (memory gone) but still didn’t get to to factory specs, so I thought that was the issues with my scrubbing. And funny you should mention the bump steer thing, it was a pig over speed bumps and the steering got quite hairy under heavy braking (heavy ish) it’s only drums. Turns out, that parked and still, the tracking was fine, as soon as you went over any bumps, or cornering, the tracking was all over the place including braking etc etc.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,, that was mine, may not be the same.

 

[naskeet]

After fitting new tyres and having an alignment carried out by a regular tyre shop I found after 1500-2000 miles that the nearside front wheel had badly worn on the outer edge. I replaced the tyre and had a fresh alignment done by a good garage that I trusted. They set the toe in to 1° toe out as they said rear engine, rear wheel drive would push the toe in to straight ahead. We have just covered about 2000 miles on a European trip and I have found that the fronts are now scrubbing off both outer edges of the fronts. What could cause this, could it be camber?

Our bus has had a lot of work carried out by a respected air cooled specialist, she has type 2 detective shocks all round and no worn bushes etc?

Any ideas please?

From what I recall, rear-wheel drive vehicles should have front-wheel toe-in, irrespective of whether the engine is mounted in the front, centre or rear.

In contrast, front-wheel drive vehicles should have front-wheel toe-out.

Badly aligned wheels will severely wear tyres in just a few hundred miles.