Tire wear and Toe in adjustment

[Mark Osterman]

Thought I had this dialed in correctly but the passengers side in particular shows more wear on the outside of the tread.

[CudaMan]

Some extra wear on the outside tread is inevitable due to the built-in positive camber. At that point, I put the worn tire on the rear and mount a new one on the front.

[Ruxstel24]

Mark S is exactly right, this is why we rotate tires on modern cars. Front always wear faster.
If it steers good, you can leave it alone or lessen the toe in slightly.

[Steve Jelf]

While camber may account for some tire wear, bad alignment will eat 'em up PDQ.

[Mark Osterman]

So Steve, that looks like exactly like the wear on mine. Was this due to incorrect toe in adjustment?

[Mark Osterman]

I guess I should actually rotate the fronts from left to right to make them wear on the other sides. But more work. Here is the drivers side tire.

[ewdysar]

Hi Mark,

The easiest way to tell if this is caused by incorrect toe-in is to check your toe-in. That should take 2 minutes or less with a tape measure. If your toe-in is not right, then this wear is probably from that. If your toe-in is correct, then this wear is probably from something else. But without taking the time to measure, I believe that your wear is likely from too much toe-in.

How many miles to get the tires to this point? Like others stated before, some amount of outer wear is normal and can be evened out with tire rotation. But if it happened fast, then it points to front end adjustment or wear.

Keep crankin’,
Eric

[Steve Jelf]

...that looks like exactly like the wear on mine. Was this due to incorrect toe in adjustment?

Yes, it happened fast. Measuring the gather showed it was too much. If it's too little or negative, the steering gets squirrely and you have to keep a tight grip on the wheel.

http://dauntlessgeezer.com/DG104.html

[Scott_Conger]

Fairly crowned roads will do that to a rf tire in 1000 miles. Swap 'em.

[Norman Kling]

All the above. In fact it's best, if you have a spare, to rotate that one too. And since you have bias ply tires, you can switch direction of rotation by swapping left to right. One way to accomplish this is take the spare and put it on the left rear. Move the left rear to left front and take the left front to the right rear and take the right front and the right front to the spare. Another thing you can do if not white wall is to turn the tire around on the rim. That is inside to outside. That's a lot of work though and usually the rotation will help take care of the problem.

If you have non demountable tires, you will need to pull off the wheels and switch from side to side, but really can't do much about the front tires since they are different size from rear. Again, a lot of work, but you can turn the tires around on the rims.
Norm

[D Stroud]

If there is more tire wear on the outside of the passenger side front tire and not the other, there is most likely something else causing the problem. Toe in (gather) will cause both tires to wear the same, either on the inside or outside, depending on which way the adjustment off. If one side wears more than the other and toe in is correct, caster or camber may be off, or the axle may be bent/twisted. I had a problem with both front tires wearing out twice on our '25 coupe, thought I had the toe in set. After I had my Grandson help me measure it after wearing out two sets of front tires, I found out it was off by 1/8". Both sets of tires wore evenly. JMHO Dave

[Alan Long]

Another visible sign of Toe in / Toe Out is the Feathering effect of the Tyres. If excessive toe out the Feathers will be leaning to
the outer while excessive Toe in will show as facing inwards on the tread. It’s a easy adjustment to correct either one. Caster, be it negative or the correct positive setting has no effect on Tyre wear only vehicle handling. With the high degree of Camber Model T’s have I find myself swapping the front wheels Left to Right every two years to even up the wear that occurs on the outer side of the tread.

[Ken Buhler]

I often wonder how many T owners/builders/restorers have actually removed the perches, installed the gauges and determined the REAL condition/alignment of their axles before moving on to wondering why things shake or tires wear. This is in my opinion absolutely paramount to making your car safe. I realize the cost of the tools and repair pieces is significant and probably prohibitive for the individual but collectively in a group makes sense. This also requires a significant press. I did so, and now can help others in my area. Safety, Safety.

[Jugster]

Because we drive our Model T's mostly on local roads which are crowned for drainage (more so than highways), our cars naturally want to run downhill, like water. And that means they tend to pull to the right a bit, so we counteract that with left pressure on the wheel which scrubs the tread on the right side of the right-front tire (The left-front tire, being much closer to the top of the crown of the street, wears much more evenly across the tread). There are a few ways of addressing this problem:

1.) After you accumulate sufficient wear on the right side of the right-front tire, dismount that right-front tire from the rim and remount it with the worn tread toward the inside. Now you can wear out the other side of the tire.

2.) To counteract the right-turning tendency without correcting so much with the steering wheel, put an extra five or ten pounds of air in your right-front tire and (heresy!) run no more than 50 pounds in your left-front tire. Yes, I know you've heard that under-inflation can cause you to shear a valve-stem. That's very true of the rear tires because some serious fore-and-aft acceleration and braking forces are inflicted upon them. The front tires? Eh, not so much.

3.) Rotate you front tires. This tactic will eventually cause you to need to go with option #1, but at least this will double the time you can procrastinate that chore.

[Dennis Prince]

As Alan said feathering is an indicator that the toe in is not set properly, it is real easy to check. Put your hand at a right angle to the tire and pull and push your hand across the tread if it feathered you will feel it fight you one way and not the other.