Drives different after wheel spacers

bkac

Caught the Bug
Has anyone noticed their jeep wondering the road after wheel spacers? I know have around 3" of BS work the spacers added. I really like the look but it wonders the road now. Am I crazy or had anyone else noticed that? Everything is tightened to spec and i removed the rotor clips a while ago.

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Tree Frog

Member
Well,
I will try to help, for all the more its worth.

How is your tire pressure? Depending you might want to reduce it some. These hot days we are having can really bring up the pressure quick once you hit the highway. Too high of pressure and you will get the wander's

How is you alignment mainly Toe In. This will really cause you to wander if it is too neutral or toed out. No I don't know what specs are or what they would be with your load out. (lift and widened stance)

The only other thing I can think of is now you are effectively wider and this will put you more into the groves we have around here from the big trucks plowing the freeway.

PS where in So. OR. are you?
 

bkac

Caught the Bug
Well,
I will try to help, for all the more its worth.

How is your tire pressure? Depending you might want to reduce it some. These hot days we are having can really bring up the pressure quick once you hit the highway. Too high of pressure and you will get the wander's

How is you alignment mainly Toe In. This will really cause you to wander if it is too neutral or toed out. No I don't know what specs are or what they would be with your load out. (lift and widened stance)

The only other thing I can think of is now you are effectively wider and this will put you more into the groves we have around here from the big trucks plowing the freeway.

PS where in So. OR. are you?

Thanks for the ideas, the pressure is 28psi on duratracs, just aligned, and I'm thinking the samething about being wider and more I the truck tracks. Just moved to klamath falls. How about you?

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David1tontj

New member
Thanks for the ideas, the pressure is 28psi on duratracs, just aligned, and I'm thinking the samething about being wider and more I the truck tracks. Just moved to klamath falls. How about you?

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Seeing as you just had it aligned, I would check your toe.. Just use a tape measure and a friend. Maybe the shop did something wrong.

I would look for about 1/8" narrower in front.

Eddie has a write up I believe. DIY alignment maybe?


My ride- 2001 power wheel, 11" plastic tires, upgraded battery, boat sides, custom bumpers, tow hooks, new paint.
 
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bkac

Caught the Bug
Yeah i do all my alignments myself in my garage with a tape. I don't trust a normal shop. It's 1\8. It drove awesome an hour before the spacers, that's the only thing i did. Idk...

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bkac

Caught the Bug
Thanks for all the ideas. Just really feels different. I'm going to double check the toe.

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cozdude

Guy with a Red 2-Door
it could be that your just noticing the wider track. since its so wide your not going to be sitting in the "normal" tire groves in the road. this will bounce you around a lot. i noticed this a decent amount when i went from stock to 32's even. it was evan more noticable when i went to 35's.
 

GCM 2

New member
it could be that your just noticing the wider track.......

coz is all over it. Sounds like your jeep is now just randomly falling in and out of, or climbing in and out of, the tracks that 95% of the other vehicles on the road have grooved/worn in so nicely. The grooves have always been there, but a stock jeep's width is about the same as every other vehicle on the road. My jeep with full width ProRock 60's and 3.5" back space wheels has a very wide track, I have actually been stopped by a few cops following me because I was wandering a little to much for their taste. My Z06 Corvettes used to do this wandering too because they also have a super wide track width, coupled with running extra wide Michelin Pilot sport tires made it really noticeable.
 
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JAGS

Hooked
it could be that your just noticing the wider track. since its so wide your not going to be sitting in the "normal" tire groves in the road. this will bounce you around a lot. i noticed this a decent amount when i went from stock to 32's even. it was evan more noticable when i went to 35's.

coz is all over it. Sounds like your jeep is now just randomly falling in and out of, or climbing in and out of, the tracks that 95% of the other vehicles on the road have grooved/worn in so nicely. The grooves have always been there, but a stock jeeps width is about the same as every other vehicle on the road. My jeep with full width ProRock 60's and 3.5" back space wheels has a very wide track, I have actually been stopped by a few cops following me because I was wandering a little to much for the taste. My Z06 Corvettes used to do this wandering too because they also have a super wide track width, coupled with running extra wide Michelin Pilot sport tires made it really noticeable.

Great posts guys. I noticed this too after my lift and tires were put on. Never really knew the reason, but makes total sense. Great explanation.



- Jason
 
Cozdude and GCM2....This is an interesting observation..(wandering caused by larger tires) .and one I had thought may have been caused by lift and not enough caster...so I was thinking of going to a PR44 Unl to try to cure this, even though my current rubi axle shows correct toe in and 5.2 degrees of caster.
 

bkac

Caught the Bug
I'm sure your right! Thanks for all the input! You guys rock :thumbup:

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GCM 2

New member
Cozdude and GCM2....This is an interesting observation..(wandering caused by larger tires) .and one I had thought may have been caused by lift and not enough caster...so I was thinking of going to a PR44 Unl to try to cure this, even though my current rubi axle shows correct toe in and 5.2 degrees of caster.

Castor being incorrect +/- will affect the steering, by either causing it to be non-responsive and sluggish, or very responsive and twitchy. What we are talking about is definitely not that kind of feeling. What I am describing is the feeling that even though I am holding my wheel straight, and the jeep is going straight, it just kind of has this tendency to just easily meander to the left and right even though I have applied no input to the steering wheel. Nothing dangerous, but it's just deciding which wheel it wants to put into the worn grooves in the road that you see rain collecting in during storms.
 

TrailBear

New member
Castor being incorrect +/- will affect the steering, by either causing it to be non-responsive and sluggish, or very responsive and twitchy. What we are talking about is definitely not that kind of feeling. What I am describing is the feeling that even though I am holding my wheel straight, and the jeep is going straight, it just kind of has this tendency to just easily meander to the left and right even though I have applied no input to the steering wheel. Nothing dangerous, but it's just deciding which wheel it wants to put into the worn grooves in the road that you see rain collecting in during storms.

When it's raining makes it easy to see the grooves in the roads , you'll really notice then at traffic lights from all the stopping. There is a spot near here that when I first hit it in my logging truck I thought I was going off the road, once we knew what it was we started having fun with it lol.
 

bkac

Caught the Bug
Castor being incorrect +/- will affect the steering, by either causing it to be non-responsive and sluggish, or very responsive and twitchy. What we are talking about is definitely not that kind of feeling. What I am describing is the feeling that even though I am holding my wheel straight, and the jeep is going straight, it just kind of has this tendency to just easily meander to the left and right even though I have applied no input to the steering wheel. Nothing dangerous, but it's just deciding which wheel it wants to put into the worn grooves in the road that you see rain collecting in during storms.

Yep, that's it! Exactly what I'm talking about. the road i drove it on after has pretty nasty tire pavement ruts.

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DA RUNT

New member
I drove from Washington to Oregon and kept getting sucked into the grooves. A little scary at 80 in a 2dr :shock:
 

Tigereye10

New member
Agreed with most of the other posts I didnt notice much change with adding wheel spacers and a lift but once I upgraded to my 35s I noticed a huge difference in handling, pretty much fixed most of my road wandering with airing my tires down from 45 to 30psi.
 

Linebacker

Caught the Bug
coz is all over it. Sounds like your jeep is now just randomly falling in and out of, or climbing in and out of, the tracks that 95% of the other vehicles on the road have grooved/worn in so nicely. The grooves have always been there, but a stock jeep's width is about the same as every other vehicle on the road. My jeep with full width ProRock 60's and 3.5" back space wheels has a very wide track, I have actually been stopped by a few cops following me because I was wandering a little to much for their taste. My Z06 Corvettes used to do this wandering too because they also have a super wide track width, coupled with running extra wide Michelin Pilot sport tires made it really noticeable.

Without a doubt knowledge is power. Gonna file this little tidbit away for use in the very near future. My '92 Comanche is due for Spidertrax spacers 'cause the previous owner put 31x10.5x15 tires on stock wheels and I'm experiencing all the problems associated with improper backspacing. It's a high miler with all new Moog parts in the front end, but the steering box has a little too much slop so it could be extra twitchy 'til I bebuild it.:yup:
 

2RedRigs

New member
it could be that your just noticing the wider track. since its so wide your not going to be sitting in the "normal" tire groves in the road. this will bounce you around a lot. i noticed this a decent amount when i went from stock to 32's even. it was evan more noticable when i went to 35's.


Lol that reminds me of the horses ass story.


The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the U.S. railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.


Roman chariot
So, who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.
Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. In other words, bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or process, and wonder, ‘What horse’s ass came up with this?’, you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear endsof two war horses.

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass.

And you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important! Now you know, Horses’ Asses control almost everything…
Explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn’t it?
 
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