Waayyy too much neg camber, eating tires (cause)?

[jseabolt]

Vehicle : 1999 Explorer V6 4X4
Owner: Stepson
Mileage: Unknown but probably 150K+
Problem: Negative camber, eating inside of front tires

I'll try to make this as short as possible. The negative camber is so bad on my stepson's Explorer it's eating the inside of the tires down to the cords.

Last year he had a blow out while going to work but was luckily 1/2 mile from his job. So I pulled the tire off his truck and we went to a used tire store. I told him, "Man this truck is messed up, you need to have it looked at to figure out why it has too much negative camber".

Well that was a year ago, I have not seen him since. I figured by that time, he would have had his truck repaired. Well apparantly not. He's just been replacing the front tires with used ones.

So my wife elects me to fix it. He told her and she told me the tire store told him that the front wheel bearings are crapped out causing the negative camber.

Looks to me like if the wheel bearings were that bad, the roaring sound/front wheel wobble would be so bad you couldn't possible stand to drive it.

So would worn wheel bearings cause way too much negative camber? I've just never heard of this happening. I've never let a vehicle get to that point. Once it starts making a roaring noise, I park it and fix it.

What else is known to cause negative camber on a V6 '99 Explorer?

Bad ball joints, control arms?

 

[SoNic67]

Just raise the front wheels and move them by hand, see if you have any play in any direction.

 

[Bobmbx]

Are you sure its camber? Inner tire wear is normally due to toe out.

See here for a visual: http://blog.allstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Toe-and-Camber-Wear.png

 

[jseabolt]

Are you sure its camber? Inner tire wear is normally due to toe out.

See here for a visual: http://blog.allstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Toe-and-Camber-Wear.png

Well from my memory, they tires were leaning in toward the top so much it was quite noticable. But I am not 100% sure that amount of camber would cause tire wear.

Here is an example. One of the camber adjustment bolts an alignment shop installed worked loose and caused the passenger side wheel to lean inward at the top:

Not to get off the subject but I pressed the wheel bearing in wrong and they have failed in less than 10K miles. I took the car to Sears to have the front end realigned and he said the roaring sound I was hearing was not my cheap Chineese made tires but worn wheel bearings. Plus I have a worn tie-rod end. No surprise that the excessive torque steer from the larger 1500 engine and turbo is not good on the front end:

http://s222.photobucket.com/user/tu...6&page=1&_suid=141997496463706749865378774994

I have not seen his Explorer in a year. Like I said when I took his wheel off and took him to a tire store to get it replaced, I told him he needed to get this problem looked into instead of just buying used tires. That was over a year ago. I figured by now he would have at least had a compentant alignment shop tell me what the problem was.

I did some research and supposably there is no camber adjustment on 1995 to 2001 Ford Explorers to compensate for suspenion wear. The camber was set from the factory. However you can buy these adjusters to replace the "nuts" or whatever you wish to call them on the top of the control arms. Maybe this is what he is talking about and not a wheel bearing:

http://www.andysautosport.com/camber_kits/ford_explorer/1999.html

 

[drdoom]

Ball joints. If you have to do upper control arms the Moog camber kits may be helpful too.

 

[RomeovilleIL]

Ball joints. If you have to do upper control arms the Moog camber kits may be helpful too.

Absolutely correct. Replace the upper control arms and lower ball joints. Honestly I am surprised a garage didn't mention this to him since it's a lot of labor and usually prices out $800-1200. However parts are not terribly expensive ($75-150 depending on grade). There are good write-ups including set-by-step photos in the stickies section. It's an entirely doable job for most home mechanics but may require a few new tools.

 

[pcam13]

Absolutely correct. Replace the upper control arms and lower ball joints. Honestly I am surprised a garage didn't mention this to him since it's a lot of labor and usually prices out $800-1200. However parts are not terribly expensive ($75-150 depending on grade). There are good write-ups including set-by-step photos in the stickies section. It's an entirely doable job for most home mechanics but may require a few new tools.

Breaker Bar
Various socket sizes, I believe somewhere in the range of 17-19
17-19 wrench
Sharpie to mark camber marks so when you get an alignment its kind of close..
1/4 inch ratchet and socket or wrenches to remove pinch bolt, cant remember size

Passenger side is a 30 min job if you know what you are doing. Driver side took me an hour because of the bolts being in such a poor spot. Lots of moving fuel lines around and wiggling to remove the last bolt.

150 bucks to my door for both arms off rock auto.

 

[Flash]

The only way to tell is to jack it up and pull the wheel around. Do that before you do anything else.

Another thing may have happened: Some previous owner may have done a TT down to bring the front in line with a sagged back, this would cause misaligned camber and excessive toe out causing the type of wear you mentioned.

 

[Bobmbx]

This will be a difficult assist for the OP. He doesn't have the truck with him.

But, one suspension part failure can lead to other parts wearing as well. So the truck may have a bad bearing initially, and leaving it unresolved caused the condition to worsen and eventually fail other suspension parts.

You're probably looking at new ball joints (upper/lower...both sides), tie-rod end links (check the grommets for wear), bearings, and tires.

Just noticed: You own a Trabant. You're a brave man.