After 30,000 miles I noticed a bad wear pattern on my driver side front tire. I thought the wear pattern looked like a tow-in problem. When I last had my front end aligned, it was with the truck empty, without the camper.
Wanting to avoid further adverse and excessive tire wear, I put my truck up on a rack and examined the front end components myself. I have been replacing components as needed over the 400,000 plus miles on this truck. Actually, all the components have been replaced two or three times over the life of the truck and I thought they were within specification. They passed my inspection. To be certain, I took the truck to a Chevrolet dealer and had one of their best front end technicians do an additional inspection. I also had a fresh front end alignment done with the camper on the truck. Thus, I will be comparing front end alignment with the truck loaded to max gross weight vs. unloaded with nothing in the truck.
The results of this exercise was an opinion by the qualified professional that everything was in top shape and the adverse wear was the result of running the truck heavily loaded. The front wheels had effectively been toed in too much at max gross weight. The difference between toe-in on the truck loaded vs. unloaded is the front end is toed in at max gross weight.
A second subject of this image is the anti-theft device pictured. Note the Denver Boot wheel clamp on the rear wheel. Because this truck has no electronic anti theft device, we use a mechanical one. It is not perfect, noting is. Hopefully, the crooks are not much interested in my clunker truck.
John D
Wanting to avoid further adverse and excessive tire wear, I put my truck up on a rack and examined the front end components myself. I have been replacing components as needed over the 400,000 plus miles on this truck. Actually, all the components have been replaced two or three times over the life of the truck and I thought they were within specification. They passed my inspection. To be certain, I took the truck to a Chevrolet dealer and had one of their best front end technicians do an additional inspection. I also had a fresh front end alignment done with the camper on the truck. Thus, I will be comparing front end alignment with the truck loaded to max gross weight vs. unloaded with nothing in the truck.
The results of this exercise was an opinion by the qualified professional that everything was in top shape and the adverse wear was the result of running the truck heavily loaded. The front wheels had effectively been toed in too much at max gross weight. The difference between toe-in on the truck loaded vs. unloaded is the front end is toed in at max gross weight.
A second subject of this image is the anti-theft device pictured. Note the Denver Boot wheel clamp on the rear wheel. Because this truck has no electronic anti theft device, we use a mechanical one. It is not perfect, noting is. Hopefully, the crooks are not much interested in my clunker truck.
John D
