Bad aligment ruined my tires

junkyardjeff · October 03, 2007, 10:05:36 PM

I rebuilt the front suspension in my 65 country squire and had it aligned,it seemed ok but not spectacular and then I looked at it from the front about 3 years later and the tires looked funny where they touched the road. The tires were like squating trying to go straight while rims were going another direction so I knew the toe in/out was not right,the new springs never settled so out they came and got cut and then I eye balled the alignment. I took it to the local tire shop and since it did not have shims in the upper A arms all they wanted to set was the toe in/out so I let them and it pulled hard to the left and then I monkeyed with it to go straight complaing that they did not know what they were doing. I got to take it to the guy that really knows alignments he said it has a hard pull to the left that he could not get out so it looks like my tires are shot from 14,000 miles of the alignment being off,its off to the tire store tomorrow to get two new tires for the front and hope it cures the problem. Jeff :x :x :x

wayne petty · October 03, 2007, 11:40:24 PM

that sounds like strut rod bushings or lower control arm bushings perhaps even lower or upper ball joints...

the ford stuff is ajusted with an excentric bolt in the lower control arm mount.. depending on the year and suspention type..some full size have slots under the upper control arm mounting bolts with a backup bar that allows the upper to slide in and out when the bolts are loosend.. this requires 2 threaded J hooks with a pinned block to do a proper ajustment as the weight of the entire front end is on these slots.. loosen it and it slide all the way into the stop...again it depends on the model of ford front end...the pinned block hooks into holes in the upper crossmember and the j hooks go over the upper control arm shaft.. this allows small ajustments...

the most important thing many techs and people dont know is that you have to let the car down to ride height before tightening the bushing through-bolts... since the through-bolts pinch the bushing inner shaft into place, if the bolt it tightened with the suspention hanging when you let the suspention down it will be in a bind.. when the suspention moves up and down it will tear out the inner shaft out of the bushing.. (remember rope burns on the wrist???) and cause premature failure...

balljoints can be checked for play with the lower control arm supported on a jack, so the weight is off the spindle. a pry bar or big honking screwdriver to pry around while watching or measuring the movement can tell if the ball joints are worn..

squeezing the tie rod ends with a big pair of channellock pliers will let you know if they are worn also... do this before you gerease them... working the steering wheel back and forth with the tires on the ground while feeling the tie rod ends will also tell if there is wear.. upper half moving before the lower half shows wear... or visa versa..

junkyardjeff · October 04, 2007, 12:19:24 AM

Everything is new including the strut rod bushings,I drove it for over 14,000 miles with the toe way out and the insides of the tires are trashed. The guy who aligned it today really knows his stuff and did a gret job on my 55 ford so if he says its the tires I believe him,I had a new tire on my truck pull just as bad. If I had the same size tires all the way around I would rotate them but I have larger tires on the rear so that cant be done. The suspension was done right as I had someone who has many years experience install the parts,he said he tightened everything with it on the ground,I would of done it myself but he needed the seat and door panels done in his truck so we traded labor. I would of tightened everything down with it in the air if I done it as I did not know,I wish now I would of gotten new tires before the alignment as I had a feeling something could be wrong with then as I did drive it a bunch before the friont end was rebuilt and it was not right then. Jeff

brti · October 04, 2007, 09:32:11 AM

My daily runner is an '83 chev pu 4x4 :oops: I had this "pro" nignog do ball joints for me,,,, he says,," I put an 1/8" toe in on it,,, I like it like that,,", I asked for him to take it out he insisted and being as the truck was outside waiting I reluctantly took it,,,,,,,,,,,, :evil: I had new michelins on it,,,,,,,,,,, they were shot in 7000 mi,,,, these guys walk the walk and talk the talk but not too many know whether they are punched or bored.

So, 1/8" cost me $100's.. got a back yard buddy to help me set it up and now it is right

,,,, From experience hiring a "pro" is a big coin toss especialy if he's going to work on an old car or a rod..........

wayne petty · October 04, 2007, 01:33:52 PM

there is a problem with big wheel alignement machines...

they enter the spects for each car ... so the display will show the limits of each cars readings in the good zone out bad zone...

the problem begins as the early machines allowed left and right wheels to be at oppsite limits... and the display would read good. (within limits.) so a car could leave the rack with one wheel with positive caster and the other with negitive caster.. when they left with differnt camber readings cars pulled...and techs scratched their heads...

over the years of working in differnt shops and buying stuff that was obsolete i ended up with 2 bender magnetic wheel alignment heads...and a pair of bear turn tables...

when i did wheel alignments all the time my alignment tools included a 20 ton bottle jack. several 3/4" 5"x5"steel plates, a 6 foot long 4" wide top and bottom i beam. several sections of frame pulling chains with hooks. a 10 ton porta power...and the most important thing was a frame measurement chart for that car. usually just the distance between the rear of the upper control arm mounts was what i used.

on 60's and early 70's camaros, novas, chevelles the problem was the frame crossmember collapses and the upper control arms are too close together as you cannot remove enough shims to get the wheel alignment even close..

once i got the caster close.(the toe also). i added extra shims to the pack so i had at least 2- 1/8 inch shims behind the upper shaft.

i made note of which wheel needed more camber added then i ran the car up on the hoist.. noted the camber readings with the wheels hanging. placed the frame pulling chains up the outside of the frame under the brake lines , behind the upper control arm and back down the outside frame. i then hooked the ends of the chain and inserted the jacking beam.. relocated the chain hooks until the beam was level and enough room for the 20 ton jack and the steel plate agenst the bottom of the corossmember. if one side needed more than the other i moved the jack towards that side.. then i jacked.. and watched each side.. ( thats where two heads came in handy) once i reached the amount of movement with the jack released i unchained it and finished the alignement..

this process took only about half an hour... and was much simpler than taking the motor out and bringing the car down to ride height with all thread studs throough the shock holes and then pressing it out with a porta power til i reached the measurement between the top rear of the upper shaft mounting brackets..

one can tell if the crossmember has collapsed.. the motor mount screws wont go in easy... once it is streached the fall into place../.

my first car was a worn out 66 gto...it had lived a really hard life here in los angeles... it was so bent that i could not put headers in it... i pounded the tubes flat on the outside and after three days of pounding, i got them in... but then the starter would not fit....these were even three tube headers... i learned a lot from that car...

many years ago my sister got on her first jumbo jet with dad.. she was nervous. as the plane throttled up and released the brakes for the takeoff roll her feeling changed. she felt comfortable and familiar...as it pushed her back harder and harder into the seat.. then she realized it was just like riding in my gto...

junkyardjeff · October 04, 2007, 05:48:38 PM

My alignment guy was right as it was the tires,I put a new pair on the front and it goes straight as a arrow. I either got one bad tire from the start or driving it until I got the front end rebuilt ruined the tires,the first shop that aligned it must of played with the toe untill it drove straight instead of telling me I could of had a bad tire and the tire shop must not have driven it as if they did they would of noticed something wrong. I was a little bummed after picking it up from the third shop as it drove as bad as it did after the tire shop got a hold of it but the thrid guy was right about the tires and its a pleasure to drive now. Jeff

tomslik · October 04, 2007, 07:52:38 PM

Quote from: "junkyardjeff"My alignment guy was right as it was the tires,I put a new pair on the front and it goes straight as a arrow. I either got one bad tire from the start or driving it until I got the front end rebuilt ruined the tires,the first shop that aligned it must of played with the toe untill it drove straight instead of telling me I could of had a bad tire and the tire shop must not have driven it as if they did they would of noticed something wrong. I was a little bummed after picking it up from the third shop as it drove as bad as it did after the tire shop got a hold of it but the thrid guy was right about the tires and its a pleasure to drive now. Jeff

easy way to tell if it's a tire, sway it side-to-side and then drive it.
if it pulls the other way, it's a tire BUT sometimes it'll drive straught then...

Crosley.In.AZ · October 07, 2007, 02:31:19 PM

Quote from: "tomslik"
Quote from: "junkyardjeff"My alignment guy was right as it was the tires,I put a new pair on the front and it goes straight as a arrow. I either got one bad tire from the start or driving it until I got the front end rebuilt ruined the tires,the first shop that aligned it must of played with the toe untill it drove straight instead of telling me I could of had a bad tire and the tire shop must not have driven it as if they did they would of noticed something wrong. I was a little bummed after picking it up from the third shop as it drove as bad as it did after the tire shop got a hold of it but the thrid guy was right about the tires and its a pleasure to drive now. Jeff

easy way to tell if it's a tire, sway it side-to-side and then drive it.
if it pulls the other way, it's a tire BUT sometimes it'll drive straught then...

We had a 77 Monte Carlo years ago.... 1 owner high mileage very nice car, Janice loved it....

the Atlas radials would develop a pull to one side..... say the right side. IF I swapped the front tires side to side it drove fine. Then about 300 - 400 miles and it would start a pull to the left side...

IF I swapped a rear tire up front , it would develop a pull to one side or the other too. Bad tires? I checked the front end many times for problems.

:0-0