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Changing caster angle solved problems with G-177 tires

Aswayze

Member
250
6
18
Location
Martinsburg Wv
I drive my deuce rather a lot using it to run back and forth out to reenacting events carting all my goodies around as well as for various surplus shopping trips. Usually around 6-8K a year and I have been getting sort of tired of constantly having to be on the hunt for more 9.00 - 20 NDCC tires to keep up with the wear and tear. Additionally, the place I generally go offroading at has a lot of nice big rocks that always manage to find a way to get stuck between the duals giving me a fun job once I am all said and done getting them dislodged.

It did not take long to figure out that with the amount of running around I do coupled with the rocks issue I should make the switch over to single rear wheels and radial tires.

Of course, we all know that costs and arm and a leg so for many years I just constantly tossed tires at the truck onsey twosey until this time when, faced with a total of 5 out of 10 tires in need of replacement I decided to opt for a good deal on a set of radials instead.

Around a thousand dollars later I finally pulled out of the tire shop with 7 nice Goodyear G-177 11.00-20 radials (1 spare tire obviously) and finally hit the road. "You'll love how it drives" they told me...

I don't know about that... This thing drives like a rocket propelled riding lawn mower now...

It is VERY twitchy, it tracks fairly straight but any slight adjustment of the wheel makes it dart around the lane. It is quite hard to keep in my lane of traffic even at moderate speed and when rounding corners, the wheel does not spin back like it used to. It actually drives sort of like how people describe Gamma Goat's.

With the 9.00-20 tires and duals it drove quite nicely so this is entirely new behavior.

I tried up and down on the tire pressure. It was at 110 originally, I dropped it first to 90 and saw no major improvement. At 75, things seemed to get slightly worse.

My buddy Dave came over and we measured the toe in, it's running about 3/8ths of an inch at the outside of the tread which given the extra distance of the 11.00 tires does not seem excessive.

I've not had anyone follow me who could be bothered to stop text messaging for 10 **** seconds and look at how the truck is tracking so I've not had any serious outside observations yet.

I do not yet have the hubs flipped, I had planned to do that over this week but sort of want to get this ironed out first since I don't want to just have to flip them back when I go buy 10 more NDCC tires to replace these things with. Currently, I am running single wheels dished outwards on the back. It doesn't seem like that would cause weird behavior but I am not about to flip them dish in and try them since I am pretty sure the truck would roll over since it is VERY unstable right now.

Anyone with experience on this front have any input or ideas?
 

davesgmc

Active member
833
131
43
Location
Mclouth, KS
gimp, i agree, you could change the caster by changing the wedge around, but tonight when i was over ther,e i didnt remember even seeing one in his truck. i may be wrong.
swayze, you may look again tomorrow,,,or go out there now, and see if indeed there is a wedge between the sring and the rear diff. like i was saying earlier that would change the caster on the front and stabilize it. the alighment shop would also be able to do the same thing. front ubolts on the driver side should come off fairly easy seeing that the wonderful spin on oil filter leakers are keeping the threads nice and lubed up.
it didint drive like the toe was an issue, that would ahve been more dart around the lanes, but it did wander, and the fact that the steering wheel wont return would be a caster issue.
 

ICAT

Member
211
4
18
Location
Idaho
Where is the shim located? Ive looked on the TM and I looked at my truck this morning and I can't find it. Is it the lower bracket? I have some G164s 22.5s I'm going to install so I would like to make any correction ahead of time.
 

ICAT

Member
211
4
18
Location
Idaho
yes i read it but everyone is saying a shim or something i can simply remove. It's the upper spring purch which is angled which need to be modified. I was looking in the TM for a "shim" like for a semi
 

davesgmc

Active member
833
131
43
Location
Mclouth, KS
nopics
and oh how i know people LOVE posting pics here! pics on the swaping of the SPRING PERCH please! OR you can actually put a shim in it like in a big truck?
 

MWMULES

Well-known member
Steel Soldiers Supporter
In Memorial
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DESOTO, KANSAS
I am glad we,( yes I have a mouse in my pocket) are coming up with a fix for Aswayze as I am the one that talked him in to getting the G177. He was looking for the Mich XL's like I am putting on my 35a2 but they have dried up out here on the prairie. I am putting the G177 on my XM818 and no problems yet.
 

emr

New member
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24
0
Location
landing , new jersey
Just wondering, if it rode nice with duels, why in the heck would caster/toe anything front end ??? be a problem ??? , im crazy but maybe a bent 5 ton rim ? rre read post, its the way they are on the truck flip the hubs or duel em , your problems will go away i would bet, the narrow steering and wide ass end is the problem described, my 7 cents.
 
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Aswayze

Member
250
6
18
Location
Martinsburg Wv
No worries MWMules, you shall always be my most trusted adviser.

Ok, picture and questions time:


Firstly, here's some pics of what we are talking about for those of you who are trying to follow along.

The pics are named, which is the best we can do since this forum won't let us use regular forum stuff where we can do captions and make an actual tutorial.

The "Shim normal" pics show the shim in place.

"Shim reversed" shows what it looks like reversed.

"Shim out" shows the spring/axle area without the shim at all.

Shim just shows the shim.




As you can see, there is a REALLY drastic difference between shim normal and shim reversed. I tend to think that just reversing the shim would be sort of a disaster. If it takes a 7 degree shim in it to make 0 degrees of caster, then wouldn't reversing that shim instead give me 14 degrees? Seems like shim dead flat would give me 7 so if I am targeting 3.5 degrees or so shouldn't I just jig this fella up in the mill and shave it to suit my needs?

Better still, does anyone know if a person could just buy a new shim that was the right angle already?
 

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davesgmc

Active member
833
131
43
Location
Mclouth, KS
just wondering, if it rode nice with duels, why in the heck would caster/toe anything front end ??? Be a problem ??? , im crazy but maybe a bent 5 ton rim ? Rre read post, its the way they are on the truck flip the hubs or duel em , your problems will go away i would bet, the narrow steering and wide ass end is the problem described, my 7 cents.

i disagee, steering wont self center itself after a turn,,,thats is a caster probelm, plain and simple. If nothing is binding, it is caster, and it self centered with the 9.00's on it, which have a contact patch to the gorund about the size of a mouse, not much road contact, the goodyears have a contact patch about the size of an elephant laying on its side, much more road contact.
 
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