[Jmark]

Thought this might be a good place for this.

This past weekend we were camping at the Grand Canyon and cutting our Christmas tree. After backing my truck inbetween 2 trees, I got out and glanced at the front tires. Both had a lot of inside tread wear and it concerned me as they have very little milage on them. I asked my son, the mechanic, to give me a hand in checking the toe. He kinda looked at me funny and said "how"? (He's a wrench too, but only on newer cars.)

I jacked up each tire then had him spin it and I scribed a line around each tire with a knive. I then got out my handy Stanley tape measure and we ckecked the toe sitting on the ground. It had 1/8" toe out. I figure that running down the road, I had maybe a 1/4" out and more on braking. Plus it wasn't handling well on the trip either. Truck has a big cabover camper and I was pulling a big loaded tent trailer to boot.

anyways, I grabbed my 13mm socket, ratchet and wrench and adjusted each side, sighting back to each rear wheel to keep the streering wheel straight, adjusting until I had 3/16" toe in. (I had started it a few times too and gently rocked the wheel to settle the tires in the dusty dirt between measurements.)

Truck tracked perfect all the way home and wheel was perfectly straight. He pretty much chuckled at me for using a "tape measure" but he's too young to remember how some of us "old guys" used to do it. I DO plan on getting it checked for caster/camber too, but hey, it got the job done and saved a ton of tire wear. Plus it gave me something to do!

Mark

[johnsongrass1]

How do you manage to check the toe accurantly with all the steering, the cab, and god only knows what else between the tires?

[poncho62]

Originally Posted by johnsongrass1

How do you manage to check the toe accurantly with all the steering, the cab, and god only knows what else between the tires?

You just measure as high on the tire as you can.....I used to set mt toe in at 1/4"...........always worked for me.

[Jmark]

Originally Posted by johnsongrass1

How do you manage to check the toe accurantly with all the steering, the cab, and god only knows what else between the tires?

Oddly enough, I can get almost "almost" a good front and back measurement. I'm maybe 1/3 down the tires on the back side and almost right on the front up front. Gonna buy a caster/camber guage off eBay and mess with it some more. Bringing back ol' memories!! LOL

Mark

[matt167]

I did that to see that my Falcon's Toe was good, and it was. I'm going to do an allignment anyway, have it at the shop due to the engine rebuild so getting an allignment is no big deal

[poncho62]

I think I have had 2 wheel alignments done at a shop in my life. When I rebuilt the front ends in my Pontiac and el Camino.........................the resst have been done that "redneck" way.....Have never had tire wear issues. Maybe, just lucky.

[Mean_Street_Rods]

I like it!!