• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

New tires - alignment now changes?

Share this page

bigjones

bigjones

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
Just had new Kumho tires put on.

Thought I'd better check the alignment and guess what! It now has a toe-in of 11/16". Before, with the old tires, it was dead-nuts-on at 0".
I don't mind adjusting it back to 0" but why would it change?
I marked the wheel rims and put them back where they came from.

Hmm. Thinking about it, I have replaced the wheel bearings (proper stuff from TRF) and the upper bushes and upper ball joints since that initial reading.

What do you think?

Cheers
 
I think you just answered your own question. Tires have nothing to do with it (unless perhaps something got moved or damaged during the process); but those upper bushes & ball joint definitely affect the toe measurement (as well as camber and steering axis inclination). Any wear or play will allow the upper pivot point to move towards the center of the car, which will change the distance between the vertical links. When you replaced them, it moved the pivot point back out, so upset the previous adjustment.

Although I have to say that 11/16" seems like a lot of change even so. They must have been in pretty bad shape.

Are you sure you didn't disturb the toe adjustment at the same time?
 
Randall,

Thanks for the post.

Yeah, the upper bushes were pretty bad.
The ball joints <span style="font-weight: bold">loooked </span>OK when I got them off. (A boot had come off one of them at some time so I thought I had better replace them)
I didn't touch the tie rod adjustment.

Anyways, I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this. Will report back if anything interesting happens.

Cheers,
Adrian
 
Back
Top