Left ftont tire wears twice as fast as Right

Hi all --

As the subject implies, I noticed that the left front tire on my 1924 Franklin has been wearing about twice as fast as the right front. I've since rotated the two tires to even out the wear. The car has rear wheel brakes only.

The question is why did this happen?

--The tires are Firestone 5.00 x 23 (23-inch rim).

--The toe-in was checked to be spot on to factory specs.

--The tire wear is even across the tire with no cupping or scuffing.

--I run tire pressures around 27 pounds to avoid excess wear in the center of the tire because this is a light weight car.

--I do alot of driving on highly crowned country roads so I'm constantly "steering" to the left to stay straight. But why would this wear only the left front?

Other than this, the car steers easy and straight with no pull to either side on a flat or non-crowned road. Rear tires are wearing evenly.

I'm pretty much at a loss for a good explanation. Ideas welcome.

--Scott

Maybe someone knows a fix for this, in the meantime you could rotate the tires to equalize wear.

Is it possible that someone at some time took a tie rod end off and turned it to adjust the toe in rather than just turn the tie rod. Or was it all apart and not put together exactly straight before adjusting the toe in. Either of these could cause one tire (right hand to be straight and all the toe in is on the left tire so in effect it has twice as much toe in.

Not familiar with your Franklin's steering and suspension setup, but perhaps some useful info to use in your quest to solve your issue.

Some vehicles from the fifties and sixties need to have the steering system pressurized while aligning the front end - perhaps your Franklin may require something similar?

Do post your findings here if / when the solution is found.

Good luck.

Tom

Another thought - are the tires a matched set?

In other words : Are the dates of manufacture the same?

If not, perhaps the manufacturer used a faster wearing rubber compound in the different batch.

Tom

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]-->Your front axle may need re alignment. This is a straight forward job to a company specialising in this type of work on truck axles. The only difficulty is that you will need to give them the specifications however this information is available from trade journals of the era .

I have restored 3 cars of the 1920's that each required significant re-alignment of the front axle even though the misalignment was not noticeable to the naked eye.

The only literature that I have is from The Automobile Trade Journal of September 1 1928 . The following details are given for Franklin:

Franklin Series11 Franklin Series 12

Sideways king pin inclination to vertical: 0 deg 2 deg

Angle of wheel spindle with horizontal: 7 deg 2 deg

You would need to find this data for your model Franklin. The AACA library could no doubt help.

In all probability it's a matter of steering and axle alignment. Axle alignment was typically done via shims between the axle and the spring perch, and if needed, bending the axle beam at the center. Get the specs and as already noted, places that deal in heavy trucks still do this type of work.

Is it possible that someone at some time took a tie rod end off and turned it to adjust the toe in rather than just turn the tie rod. Or was it all apart and not put together exactly straight before adjusting the toe in. Either of these could cause one tire (right hand to be straight and all the toe in is on the left tire so in effect it has twice as much toe in.

Forgive me for being clueless, but isn't toe-in always the same for both front wheels?

You can't have the left with a greater or less toe-in than the right, can you? I mean, don't they equalize out?

--Scott

You can't have the left with a greater or less toe-in than the right, can you?

True for beam-axle front suspensions with a single tie rod. Not true for cars with independent front suspension.

If the frame is bent or front and rear axles misaligned you can get dog tracking in which case you might have more toe on one side than the other.

The problem is more likely to be axle misalignment than toe in. Shimming the axle will change the caster angle but that will not correct an out of alignment king pin inclination angle on one side which is what I have experienced. The misalignment can be well off spec and not normally be noticeable looking at the wheels.

If one side is bent the only solution for that is to have the axle bent back to spec. It can be done without removing the axle from the car but it is more accurate and less expensive to take the bare axle to the person doing the work.

The car will steer and track much better after the axle has aligned correctly.

Can you bend a tubular axle?

Can you bend a tubular axle?

In some cases, yes. After I got my '33 Plymouth with a tubular front axle back together it was obvious that my attempts to get the front end aligned were inadequate. I took it to a local truck place, and after agreeing to hold them harmless, they were able to bend the axle back into compliance with the specifications. No harm done to it and the car handled much, much better after the correction. But it was pretty nerve racking for me watching the young fellow at work.