Feathered Tread

[ShafferNY]

While going over my Jeep before winter, I noticed the tread on the front tires has some pretty good tooth to them. They're feathered to the inside.

Now, I understand some feathering is normal, but how much is too much?

When I had my alignment done after I installed my lift, the numbers the guy gave me were(exactly as written on the reciept):

Align .4 .4
Cast 2.9
Toe 18

The guy who did the alignment was a bit irrated the day my girlfriend dropped my Jeep off. He said "no one told me it had a lift" and grumbled a bit.

When I picked the Jeep up, he told me he got it as close as he could. He told me to drive it for a while and if I wanted him to get it closer, he'd try.

What confuses me is the number he wrote down for the toe adjustment. The factory service manual is in degrees. Is that 18 degrees?

The Jeep drive straight as an arrow down the road. I think the toe adjustment is too far in.

 

[Powerslave]

He may have meant 1.8 degrees, no way is it 18. Lift kits generally effect the CAMBER of the wheels. When you left UP, they pull IN to ride on the outer edge. When you lower, they push OUT to ride on the inside. Castor is not ALL that important, it is the TOE and CAMBER that are the most important - TOE being the first. All cars have a TOE adjust, that's done at the tie-rod end connection to the tie rod. Not all cars have Camber or Castor adjustments. IF a car is out of camber, and there is no adjust then generally, a new upper control arm fixes it. Castor is the angle of the strut - forward or backwards, you can see the chart below for all the angles:

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The degrees is IN "\" or OUT "/" for toe, optimal being STRAIGHT "|". That has to be 1.8 degrees IN or OUT, which should be within tolerance. That castor should be CAMBER, and if it were, the amount looks about right for a 3" lift as a correction.

It is hard to tell, when you go to Firestone or other, they give you a graphic print out of the tire angles, the adjustment values, and current tire position in the block (road) - with a color of GREEN for ok, RED for out, and can't be adjusted, or orange for so-so, which is the best they could do. My former avenger had no front Camber adjust, and went farther RED every year... I put in a Camber adjust kits in FRONT and BACK, they didn't have the tool to move the adjusters in the front upper arm bushings. The back were just cam adjusters in the mount brackets to the body, that they could correct. It also had NO castor adjust, nor was there any correction available.

Castor, when out, usually means a bent strut or mount, or the strut tower has been stressed and warping. It will also cause Camber issues, and that can be corrected with a simple strut brace - pulled tight to pull the towers IN towards each other, to push the wheels back out. I used a strut brace, and had them experiment with over tightening it to pull a little on the strut towers to correct the Camber as much as possible. Still, could not get GREEN on the passenger side, was always in the orange... IF they would it's dangerous to mess with it in this manner, as I could have damaged the strut towers permanently, I got lucky...

Lifting a car 3" will need major front end alignment anyway, mainly CAMBER though. Toe is just due to day to day driving with potholes and speed bumps.

 

[ShafferNY]

I understand the terms and geometry behind alignments, but the numbers he provided me didn't make any sense, specifically the toe adjustment.

I hope it's not 1.8°. Factory spec is .2°, plus or minus .125°. Acceptable range is +0.075° to +0.325°

If it were 1.8°, it would be way out, which would explain the wear on the tires. If it were .18° it would be within spec.

Unfortunatly, this moron didn't indicate anything but "toe 18" on the receipt. I might have to take it to another garage.

 

[kj924]

Here's my alignment sheet when I lifted....Sears did the alignment.

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[ShafferNY]

According to that, my camber is okay, my caster is off, and my toe is god knows what.

 

[Powerslave]

Your front L/R toe is ok now, the BEFORE were out of spec.

 

[ThunderbirdJunkie]

The lift has settled. The tires have toed out, creating inside edge wear.

Have it realigned.

 

[moparman]

Toe is the easiest adjustment. If you have a level spot, fabricate a couple of jigs and came up with some string, you could do it yourself. I would think that the camber changed too but that might not be what is wearing the tires. The KJ has some negative camber anyway. Are the tires getting rotated?

 

[kj924]

Your front L/R toe is ok now, the BEFORE were out of spec.

Yeah I know that, these numbers were from the day I took it in for alignment. They measure the before and after alignment specs when doing a front end alignment.