Tire wear & rotating

[number9]

Need to call on you guys for input....

Freightliner FLD120 - 115,000 miles on bushings
Yokohoma RY637 Steer tires with 60,490 miles total
Monroe gas shocks with 10,000 miles on them
3-axle laser alignment 40,000 miles ago

My steers were wearing real good. Last week with 58,000 miles on them I had the steers dismounted, flipped and remounted on the same wheel and spin balanced. Wheels were installed on the same side of the truck they came off of. Tires balanced RH=4oz and LH=8oz. We installed Centramatic balancers at this time also.

The tires have 2,200 miles on them since they were flipped. Seen the truck today and the driver showed me that the RH steer tire is wearing bad on the inside tread - about 3/4 way around it is wearing in a wave pattern, or cupping. If you run your hand around the tread you can feel the up and down, up and down, up and down. In about 3 spots the tread is nearly worn half way out - or twice as much as the rest of the tread. This is only on the inside edge of the RH tire - which used to be the outside edge since the tires were flipped on the wheels.

I did not notice any bad wear at all on the tires last week when the tire shop was flipping and balancing the tires. I feel that I may have made a mistake by not having the wheels rotated after the tires were flipped - as is, the tires are running backwards from what they were before (because they were flipped on the wheels and stayed on the same side). Had they been rotated as well, they'd be running the same direction as they were before. Am I right in thinking that running the tires "backwards" may have damaged a belt or caused the bad wear?

[rank]

I hope you get and answer....the inside is where our steers seem to wear also.

[Jumbo]

We always flip them on them rim and switch sides and that seems to work the best for us.

[furbis]

I just swap them from one side to the other on the same wheels with no problems yet.

[allan5oh]

You may have toe out. That causes severe cupping and FAST.

[Papa Rick]

Here is a good website to check out your wear pattern on tires:

http://www.kaltire.com/commercial/me.../tire_wear.php

[Crash935]

Check for a bad Kingpin on that side.

[number9]

Thanks a TON for that link PapaRick.

Just wanted to post a followup as I hate it when threads just die and no one who may have the same issue gets the conclusion.

I decided to continue running the tire to see if it gets worse as it was already damaged/bad wear anyways. It has gotten worse, so that confirms that the wear is coming from the inside and wasn't on the outside before. The drivers side tire still looks fine other than it now has just two faint dips in the inside edge of the tread.

I jacked the passengers side wheel off the ground (drivers side still on the ground) and used a bar to work the wheel up & down and with my hand on the top sidewall of the tire I think I could feel just a *touch* of play - ever so slighty. However, I could move the tire left-right about 1 to 2 inches :shock: so I guess I have found the source of my problem. The tie-rod ends are pretty sloppy and the drag link seems to have a little play in it as well. The truck was pretty loose going down the road - always had to be working the wheel catching up to the steer tires. I wonder why my driver hasn't mentioned this, but he may be used to driving trucks that are wore out???

Anyways, going to put on new tie-rod ends and drag link, new steer on the RH side and get fresh alignment FOR SURE. Still undecided about the king pins - if it doesn't need them I hate to change them, but I don't want to NOT change them while I am in there refreshing everything else if they need it and end up wearing the new steer tire down again. Ofcourse if I ask someone to check them I am 99% sure they will tell me they need to be changed so they can get to do the work.

I am kind of excited to get this lined out and see how long these steers will last. They have around 70,000miles on them now and look brand new except for the bad wear on the inside edge.

Anyways, after thinking about it more, it makes sense to me that the RH side tire would wear worse than the LH side tire with sloppy steering components since the LH side wheel only has 2 joints (on the drag link) between the direct action of the steering box and the wheel. The RH side wheel has the 2 extra joints on the tie-rod ends so total of 4 possible sloppy joints to allow the tire to wonder more and wear worse.


Thanks for the help guys and I will post followup on how it turns out.



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