Page 1 of 1
New tires
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 5:07 pm
by John L
Ok I need to replace the tires on the front of my 23. As it is there is excess difference in the wear of the two tires. The one on the left seems to have worn evenly, while the on on the right has excess wear on the outer edge. What is the best way to check front end alignment?
Re: New tires
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 5:14 pm
by Scott_Conger
John
you are experiencing normal wear if you live on paved two lane roads with a good crown. Swapping fronts before wear gets that bad slows it down, and then when they both look the same, swap them for rears.
You will get lots of advice on alignment and everyone will say they are correct and the other guy is inducing errors. I won't get into that.
Best of luck.
Re: New tires
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 5:53 pm
by Oldav8tor
While on this subject, how about tire rotation? I have demountable 30 x 3.5's - does it help to swap front to back? In an "X"? Left to right? Recommendations?
Re: New tires
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 6:55 pm
by TWrenn
Tim..it definitely can't hurt. Jiat get plenty of jack stands to facilitate the job!
Re: New tires
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 6:56 pm
by TWrenn
And yea I would cross-cross them if it were me.
Re: New tires
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 9:52 pm
by Steve Jelf
What is the best way to check front end alignment?
It doesn't have to be very far off to wear out your tires PDQ, so it's a good idea to check. http://dauntlessgeezer.com/DG104.html
Re: New tires
Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:36 am
by 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.
Re: New tires
Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:40 pm
by Alan Long
I don’t have Tyre wear issues with my 26 so have never rotated the wheels, however with the massive Camber
on the front of the 1910 I do swap the wheels left to right every couple of years to even up the wear.
Alan