Feels like tires roll over on therselve?

[mountaineer12]

replaced front struts outer tie rods and sway bar links put all back together went to drive and the truck all over the place turn out driveway and feels like tires are rolling over kinda hard to explain?

 

[Kiliona]

replaced front struts outer tie rods and sway bar links put all back together went to drive and the truck all over the place turn out driveway and feels like tires are rolling over kinda hard to explain?

Did you do an alignment on the truck? It may be that you messed up your alignment, excessive toe could cause the tires to scrub, excessive negative camber could cause the wheels to not properly return to center, etc.

I would definitely get the alignment checked after doing work like this. Especially with doing tie rods, unless you took very specific measurements and adjusted the tie rods to compensate you MUST do an alignment after doing tie rods.

 

[Kiliona]

I feel like I should add, tie rods adjust toe, when replacing them it will set your toe out of alignment. Toe angle is THE MOST DAMAGING alignment angle to get wrong (to your tires and other components), again if you didn't do an alignment, I'd do one ASAP (unless you really knew what you were doing and did measurements before and after very accurately and knowing that before it was good)

 

[mountaineer12]

did not do aligment marked tie rods before taking off old ones put new ones back in same place its barley drivable hit a little snow patch and almost took me in ditch doing 30-40mph feels like truck wants to go side to side any small movement of steering wheel makes truck go out of controll

 

[mountaineer12]

gonna check aligment first but any other ideas if not??? thanks

 

[mountaineer12]

cant afford aligment right now just dumped 400 for all parts just replaced and don't ythink it wouyld be driveable to make it to a shop to get aligment done?

 

[swshawaii]

Agree with Kiliona, you're scrubbing tires big time, probably due to your tie rods being way off. Pick a tread on the front
and rear of the tires, and measure the distance making them close to the same as possible. CRAWL to an alignment shop.

 

[Kiliona]

Agree with Kiliona, you're scrubbing tires big time, probably due to your tie rods being way off. Pick a tread on the front
and rear of the tires, and measure the distance making them close to the same as possible. CRAWL to an alignment shop.

This. do a really rough alignment in your driveway for atleast your toe.

Measure thee distance between the front of your two front tires, and then the back. Then tighten/loosen your tie rods until they're as close to the same distance as you can get them (really you should have slight toe in, but driveway alignments aren't accurate prbly shouldn't try for this).

This MAY make it driveable to the shop, but remember there are two other alignment angles that need done which can not be done in the drive way camber and caster. If you're getting crazy bump steer (sound like what you were describing) and unpredictable steering Id assume your caster is way off which is impossible to do without an alignment rack and very dangerous to leave off. (doing your struts would probably have thrown this off)

If you can get the toe in, in your driveway, don't drive anywhere but to a shop. If you can't afford an alignment you most definitely can't afford a new truck if this issue were to wreck your truck or worse injure somebody and you would be liable. I just say this to enforce the point, do not drive your explorer in this state no matter how broke you are.

Best of luck to you!

 

[mountaineer12]

any way you could give more deatail on the measuring the front of tread and back of tread a quick explination on what exactly im measuring would really appreciate it thanks guess im not as good as a mechanic as I thought lol

 

[mountaineer12]

so with wheels straight measure from outside of driver side tire to outside of passenger tire? then back of driver side tire to back of passenger tire?

 

[mountaineer12]

new truck is out of the question lol still paying for this one just trying to make it drivable to get to shop bout fifteen miles away so far have only drove up down street few times to try to figure out problem

 

[mountaineer12]

thanks guys went out and adjusted tie rods 10 below out and only one set of hands so was hard measuring from tire to tire but just adjusted them so rotors were straight not a permenant fix but way better than before think I can saftley make it to aligment shop

 

[Kiliona]

Yeah sometimes it's easy to forget everythign that needs done when doing work on a car haha.

Sounds like you figured out how to do the driveway toe alignment, however. That's good.

Just for anybody reading this, remember that replacing struts requires an alignment remember to factor this into your cost before you do the job. Replacing tie rods also requires an alignment. If doing ANY suspension work remember that there's a chance you'll need an alignment so if you aren't sure rembmer to check.

 

[swshawaii]

Agree. Wasteful paying $60-$100 for an alignment after replacing a $30 outer tie rod. If possible, replace ALL worn parts first.

 

[Kiliona]

Agree. Wasteful paying $60-$100 for an alignment after replacing a $30 outer tie rod. If possible, replace ALL worn parts first.

Agreed. Most decent shops do this anyways, they won't do the alignment without replacing all wornout parts. Reason being it's a waste of money, but also if there are worn out parts then the alignment might be thrown off the first time you drive it out of the shop anyways.