methods for setting own toe-in

jeepmkcomin

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2007
Location
Raleigh NC
Well currently I have been setting my toe in roughly by measuring the outside of the tread and/or rim on the front and backsides of the tires/wheels but it is hard to measure at the same spot front and back of the tire.

Does anyone have a better method to set toe in on a solid axle vehicle?

I am trying to get more accurate basically. I want to eliminate that as a possible cause of my steering wobble (although I think these tires I got for free are junk).

Thanks ahead of time. I did use the search function and go back 5 pages worth.. couldn't find anything.
 
Thats the same way I always do it and have no trouble. Keep in mind that worn out wheel bearings, tie-rod joints, or drag link joints will give you false readings, as well as warped wheels or really bad tires.
 
Take wheels off, clamp a 3' long straight piece of metal to each rotor (centered). Measure the distance between the 2 pieces of metal at the back and at the front. If I remember correctly, you want about 5/8" shorter in front than in back. Contact Chuckman, he helped me do mine. I just can't remember if 5/8" is the right number. That actually got my front close enough that I never took it to get it aligned (my trail rig that is).
 
5/8" is not close enough. Generally you want 1/4-1/2" of toe on the tires. If measured at the rotors (assuming ~12" rotors and 30" tires), 5/8" toe would give you ~1.5" of toe in at the tires. 1/16" at the rotors will give you about 3/16" at the tires, so somewhere between 1/8 and 3/16" is what I would shoot for with that method.
 
put the front end up on stands, have buddy spin tires by hand while you hold spray can of white paint to make a stripe on middle of tire. Then have same buddy keep spinning the tire and take a nail or screwdriver and scribe a strait line on center of each white stripe. this will give you a true consistant line around each tire. Measure front and back of scribed line and depending on tire size you can set toe in to what ever it needs to be. On my 35's I go with about 1/4"-3/8" difference from front to rear.

I'm not an alignment expert so if anyone thinks this is not a propper shade tree way...well i don't care...it works for me.

sometimes if i'm feeling lazy i'll measure from inside to inside of the wheel lip and go with about 1/8" difference. But if your wheels take the kind of abuse some of ours take this might not give you very consistant readings.
 
modify the above ^
Jack up vehicle and secure on stands.
have buddy spin tires while you hold a piece of chalk still against the inner tread edge and outer tread edge of each tire.

You now have 4 lines
Left Inner
Left outer
Right Inner
Right Outer

To start measure
LO-RO
then
LI-RI
These two should be equal or damn close

You can further check caster by
LO-RI
LI-RO
 
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