Toe-In
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Ranch_Hand_Supp
Advertiser
N80 said:
Standing in front of the tractor.....
Negative Camber, The top of the tire toward the tractor.
Positive Camber, The top of the tire away from the tractor.
All the tractors I have worked on the Camber is built into it..... not adjustable.
Positive Camber is built into tractors to give the tires better traction on turns.
You want see as much Positive Camber in the smaller tractors like a lawn Mower because it will tear up the lawn when turning.
Ronald
Ranch Hand Supply
qstott
Silver Member
Sometimes the tire type will make quite a difference. On my JD 1050 it was equipped with turf tires on the front. They were worn out and I replaced them with some r4s. I went for a test drive on the hiway, and I thought the tractor would shake me out of the seat! I had a violent jerking from left to right at hiway speeds. I checked my toe in, and it was about 1/4" closer in the front than the rear. The specs said this was correct. So, I adjusted the front in a little closer, and it got worse. I put it back to equal distance, and it was better, but still there. I set the toe in to be out instead of in by about a 1/4" and it behaved perfectly.
daTeacha
Veteran Member
How about caster? On a bicycle, the rearward tilt of the front forks helps keep the wheel pointed ahead. Older cars had adjustable caster, but you don't see it much on newer ones. Also known as kingpin angle, but I'm not sure what does other than help with tendency to go straight.
TrippleT
Gold Member
Most of the answers on toe-in are correct. When moving ahead or forward the tires will not wear as bad when set correctly. Someone here said that their toe was 3/4 in, that is to much, and will wear the tires. On most tractors the rest of the geometry is fixed and one should not worry about it, unless, you bend the axle. That would take some doing, but I am sure someone has. LOL
dbdartman
Platinum Member
daTeacha said:
Caster: (draw a line from upper ball joint through spindle to lower ball joint, if the top of the line points to the back it's positive, if it points to the front it's negative).
Positive caster will cause the front end to track straight with little input & be stable at high speed, but increases input effort when turning. This is not an issue with power steering. Manual steering cars typically had 0 caster, or even a bit of negative caster to lower steering effort (while the car is moving).
Whoever said that toe-in makes the car turn faster is wrong. My Dart (which is built to chase Corvettes) was aligned with 3/8" toe-OUT. It was very hard to drive on the highway because if you took your eyes off the road for more than a second or 2, the car would go where you were looking!
Just before I parked the car a couple years ago I had it aligned again, but this time dialed in about 3/16" toe-IN. Now the car is much easier to drive on the highway, BUT throwing it through turns is MUCH different: Before with the toe-out, turn-in (changing direction from straight to turn) was fast & hard without a lot of extra input of the wheel. With toe-in, turn-in is much slower & the wheel requires more input to change direction (plus it feels like the front wheels are "scrubbing"). Whenever the car goes back on the road, I WILL be dialing most, if not all, of the toe-in out of the front end. Paying attention to the road is a small price to pay for the joy of throwing that car into a turn at (what some describe as) insane speed & having it turn fast & sure. 
BTDT
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I would agree that if it was driven on pavement all the time it would wear the tires, but in the dirt I bet you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.TrippleT said:
BTDT
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Camber not adjustable? What about motor graders, they can adjust their steering wheels from vertical to almost parallel with the ground (to offset the torque/side loading of the blade). But I guess it's "technically" not a tractor.Ranch_Hand_Supp said:
KICK
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KINGPIN INCLINATION AND CAMBER are two different things that seem almost the same .
the kingpin inclination combined with camber makes the wheel spindle move in an arc as the wheels are turned . you ever look at a road grader when its front wheels are turned and the wheel are literally laying over on their side?? thats because there is alot of kingpin inclination on that type of vehicle.
it also makes tow tires that are lined up parallel to each other when in a straight ahead position become unparallel or have more toe out when turning.
its a complex thing, steering. all that stuff is figured out engine ears who have a better education than a poor old mechanic like myself who just puts the stuff the way they say to set it.
like somebody else sed, tractor with a straight axle doesn't have much adjustments, pretty easy when you get right down to it, and because these vehicles are low speed operators and mostly in dirt it doesn't matter to much unless the steerring is way out of whack
the kingpin inclination combined with camber makes the wheel spindle move in an arc as the wheels are turned . you ever look at a road grader when its front wheels are turned and the wheel are literally laying over on their side?? thats because there is alot of kingpin inclination on that type of vehicle.
it also makes tow tires that are lined up parallel to each other when in a straight ahead position become unparallel or have more toe out when turning.
its a complex thing, steering. all that stuff is figured out engine ears who have a better education than a poor old mechanic like myself who just puts the stuff the way they say to set it.
like somebody else sed, tractor with a straight axle doesn't have much adjustments, pretty easy when you get right down to it, and because these vehicles are low speed operators and mostly in dirt it doesn't matter to much unless the steerring is way out of whack