Gooday,

 Suggest you find a GOOD Truck Alignment place, they normally do it, I had ours done about 6 months or so ago, had a recommendation where to go and they did a first class job, Toowoomba Queensland, from memory it was about $400-00 but that is a Tandem axle caravan, also had them weld a broken Shock Absorber Mounting back on and the whole job cost me about $600-00 but they did a great job.

 Cheers,

 Bliss on Wheels.

Desert Dweller wrote:

---

A fairly simple question. Has anyone had one & what does it involve to rectify, technically & cost wise? The drivers side of our caravan is scrubbing out tyres at a great rate?

---

Hi Keith,

Do you know if your van has adjustment for toe in, tow out. Our new Van and our old camper both do / did. Both have independent suspension set ups. our boat trailer (tandum) does not. Its a Pita.  Scrubs tyres Sydney -Wa return. Some say we are over loaded on the axles. I moved our bogie back 3 inchers there abouts  a long time back, to apply extra weight on the ball. That's when our problems started.

Has this been the case from new or has it been developing over time???

Jim 

Desert Dweller wrote:

---

 From new Jim, it was first noticed after the first year of ownership when we took our van in to get the electric brakes & wheel bearings serviced. The inside of the drivers side tyre was scrubbed severely. We hadn't noticed it.

---

 Most vans these days seem to have overlay axles. I was advised by the truck aligner that serviced my van that these axles frequently have the stubs welded on crookedly. The only way to fix these axles is to take them to a truck aligner and he will bend them to straighten the axle. Ordinary wheel aligners do not have the equipment to do the work.

I have already posted a reply on this theme to Hey Jim's bitches about his Jayco van and the lack of service. If you look back to the early postings (not the latest which is near the top of the list today), you may find it.

The gist of it is that my axle was made by Al-Ko, and they eventually replaced it for free including freight. I had to fit the new axle (and the 'repaired original axle') myself - which I doubt that I could do these days. My axle was strong enough - it was made from 45 0r 50 mm solid square steel. It had not bent or deflected at all. They weld the round stub axles directly onto one side of the axle. I think they position the stub and weld one side heavily. As the weld cools, the metal shrinks and thus the axle deflects. Then they weld the other side and again as the weld metal cools, it shrinks, but not as much as the original weld. Therefore you are left with some toe-in or to-out. My problem was that Jayco didn't check and the original axle was assembled with the brakes such that the axle had toe-out. 10 mm of it in fact. The tyres wore rather rapidly. To further compound the issue, Jayco mounted the axle about 20 mm offset such that one U bolt was directly underneath the chassis rail and at aome stage had hit it and bent it. I finished up taking the axle off the van and taking it to Jayco factory and personally seeing the service manager. The hassles associated with that move were beyond belief. The solution proposed to repair my van was not much better. Needless to say, I was way less than impressed with Jayco assembly quality and their after sales service.

As a temporary measure, i reversed the axle and evened out the tyre wear a bit, but of course this was of little use in curing the original problem. After 3 sets of tyres, I contacted AL-Ko asking them how much toe-in the axle should have. Their manager (Rob Funder) asked me to remove the axle and send it to him. He sent me a new axle. I measured the new axle toe-in, and found it to be 5 mm at the centre of the tyre tread. Thusfar (about 30000 km later), the tyres seem to be wearing evenly, so I guess this must have worked.

About 3 weeks ago, I was cleaning out some of the mess in my office (SHOCK HORROR), and found a postit note from my wife saying that Rob Funder had phoned and told me that the toe-in should be 5 mm at the tyre tread or 0.5 degrees. By accident, it seems that I may have the right setup at last on my van. Early in the negotiations with AL-KO, I asked why a solid axle needed any toe-in, His reply was that you need some toe-in to steady the trailer, otherwise it could be more unstable. I suspect that is is more to do with the way the axles are welded rather than the design of the axle, but as said above, the tyres seem to be wearing evenly so I cannot complain.

For what is is worth, my previous van had 11 mm toe-out and wore out a set of crossply tyres in 10000 km. The manufacturer (Viscount) fixed the axle for me no problems. So from 11 mm toe-out, to 10 mm, a few more caravans and I may actually have one with the right setup??? Needless to say, I am touchy on this subject and I walk around caravan parks looking at tyres. I have found quite a few with worn tyres on the inside corners. The owners didn't have a clue that the tyres were stuffed, and also why.