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Tracking / tyre wear

P

Perkins

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Hi,

I have a problem with our 1986 4gtl. The front tyres are both worn badly on the outside shoulders but have loads of tread on the rest of the tread surface, which I think is due to too much positive camber (ie distance at top of oposing tyres wider than distance at bottom). Having looked at the very old and original spare it is exactly the same. The car has covered about 50,000 miles since new, so I am guessing the spare is an original fittment, so the car has been like this a long time.

I took it to a local garage here in France to get 2 new front tyres and the mechanic told me it was normal and was due to there being too many roundabouts (an English invention !) - he must have thought I was even more stupid than I look, and that's pretty stupid.

As the car handles fine and doesn't pull to one side I am assuming it is the camber, but as far as I can gather, you can't change this.

Can anyone give me any clues to the problem and how to solve it. Also, how many miles to a set of front tyres is 'normal'


Cheers,
 
It's much more likely to be a tracking problem. The front wheels should toe out by between 1mm and 5mm (that's the distance between the front of the front wheel rims should be 1 to 5mm bigger than the distance between the rear of the front wheel rims).

In the UK most tyre fitters would be able to adjust the tracking (badly). Not sure how long the tyres should last. I'd guess about 30,000km, but they should wear evenly.
 
I would imagine it is something to do with the rack height. Has the steering rack been removed recently ? If you dont put the correct shims in the steering will be all over the place.
 
I had this problem recently. I had 4 new tryes put on to my GTL 1986 in January of this year and by April my two front ones were bold on the inside/edge. I took it to the garage to get 2 new ones put on and asked for the tracking to be done too.
I haven't had any problems since, the tyres look fine!
Was a bit of a pain and a waste as the tyres were only three months old and were fine apart from the inside edge being bare.
 
I have the same problem, unlike drivers of other cars. But the only time you can have any performance fun in a 4 is on roundabouts, so I dont brake before going round them, unlike other drivers.
 
Dimensions of the shims on the rack?

I just fit new tires on my R4 (I recently purchased the car), but I noticed after a short travel, some lost of control anytime the wheels find a road uneven area. Checking the toe I noticed wheels are not well aligned. Distance on the front of the front wheels is bigger then on the rear. I noticed also the rack is missing the shims mentioned by SWIFT. Do anybody knows dimensions and kind of material they are made of?
 
I would like to adjust myself the toe to my car. Malcolm mentioned it must be between 1 to 5 mm difference, I guess it is done by adjusting the arms on the rack. I noticed they get longer/ shorter as you turn them one side or the other, Am I right?, On the other side, just for the sake of knowledge how to adjust camber? is it adjustable on this cars?
 
Last edited:
measuring and adjusting rack height / shims is a job for a renault specialist, and to adjust tracking / toe in, you need guages to align correctly
 
There is no practical way to adjust track other than specialist alignment equipment. And as Swift said, you must measure rack height too (I wonder if there are persons over there with the know-how to do it). Camber is not readily adjustable on an R4 but it alters with ride height, therefore if it is not correct you will get incorrect camber readings too.
 
Swift, Angel

Thaks for your notes on tire wear. I will look locally for someone left that knows and have the equipment to check the track. Have a nice weekend.
 
Hi all

Just a simple question: If front tyres wear too much on the inside, is the problem too much toe-in, or too much toe-out?

Thanks
Andy
 
Too much toe out. It could be tracking but have a look at balljoints and the tie bar mounts on the front of the chassis too (cheap if you don't buy them from Renault).
 
Thanks, Malcolm

The balljoints, track rod ends and shock absorbers are all new. I replaced the nearside tie-rod bush (the 'eye'), as the original had had it, and the van (F6) was pulling to the left. After changing the bush, the pull disappeared; now the replacement bush is deteriorating in the same way - the suspension seems to be pulling outwards. To make things more complicated, the front wheels seem to have too much negative camber. The van's on its 3rd rack - the first two had the common nearside 'play' problem. I guess problems with the nearside tie-rod bush encourage the rack to develop that play (?)
Would welcome any suggestions ( I hope it's nothing to do with torsion bars...).

All the best
Andy
 
Negative camber would be normal if there is too much toe out. The bottom of the tyres would try to pull themselves outwards, and play in bushes lets them.

The wrong tracking would put a strain on everything. I'd be inclined to have it reset by a decent garage (if you can find one). Many tyre fitters will assume your rear track is the same as your front track (which it is not) and use the light beam machine which would result in a whole load of toe out. I guess that will have been the problem.

To check the tracking using DIY - cut a stick to exactly the distance between the rear of the wheel rims. (Telescopic stick would be even more helpful, I think Ian grows them in his arboretum). Then move the stick to the front of the wheels and check the gap. Should be 1 to 5 mm from memory (though you'll not be able to get as high as the centre line of the wheel so you'll need to use arithmetic to work out exactly what the gap would be up there. You should be able to get it close enough by that method though.
 
Exactly as you noticed, inside edge tyre wear has to do more with negative camber than anything else.
The bad news are that negative camber on R4s is a consequence of too low a ride height up front, which means you must measure and reset it before doing anything else.
I'm fairly sure we have discussed it somewhere else...
 
Thanks for the advice - I've been wondering whether it's a ride height problem.
Can any other F6 owners help me out here by measuring the distance from the bottom of the front bumper to the ground?
 
Don't measure from the bumper, wings or other removable components, the results could be misleading due to inaccurately fitted panels.
Measure the distance from the wheel centre to the ground (H1), then the distance from the underside of the front chassis sidemember at the imaginary wheel axis (H2). the difference H2-H1 is the ride height. For cars it shouls be 41mm, vans sit 10mm lower at 51 mm. Anything over this means corresponding suspension sag.
 
SWIFT said:
I would imagine it is something to do with the rack height. Has the steering rack been removed recently ? If you dont put the correct shims in the steering will be all over the place.
Click to expand...
Hi swift. I've just changed engine and gearbox now wanting to refit original steering. Do you know which way round etc to fit the shims. Thanks
 
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