2004 Express Cutaway Tires

[rpaoness]

I think I should finally pony up for some new tires on the box truck. The rear set were my WJ Atturo Trailblade all terrain take-offs when I decided they were too noisy and kinda worn. They're now finally wearing out on the center tread. Still legal, but barely, and they're quite loud.

The front two are still from my original truck purchase, and inside edges of both are at the wear bars, probably 10-15% life remaining across the whole tire. I think they are Nexen Roadians.

For trailers and my RV, Hercules brand seems to be the best value - they're not the cheapest, but I've had no balance problems, no walking cords, etc., and decent tread life.

LT225/75R16 Load Range E I believe. May not have to have the Load Range E for the 12k GVW, but I think I should insist on it in case I'm loaded heavy.

I thought I would find those cheap, but not really. $1004 w/ shipping for 6.
https://www.tires-easy-truck.com/225-75 ... code/96432

Here's a couple simple tire options:

$624 for the set:
https://simpletire.com/brands/prinx-tir ... 9225250404

$882 for the set:
https://simpletire.com/brands/nexen-tir ... s=2&rad=CC

[kevm14]

If you are having tire noise problems on a box truck, they must be pretty loud.

[rpaoness]

https://www.prioritytire.com/by-brand/i ... 5aEALw_wcB

These might be an option - Hercules Ironman, $744 for the set.

down to $707 w/ LUCKY26 promo. I wonder if i should just go for those.

[rpaoness]

I called The Tire Store in East Lyme to see if they could do an alignment on the box truck and they said no. Carry-out price for the Ironman's from them is $115 each, so $690 for the set.

[rpaoness]

Looked at it again yesterday. The rears have worn through all of the sipes on the center tread, but are not yet near wear bars across the tread face, center is more worn than shoulders (for wear purposes I could probably drop pressure some, but I need the full 80 psi to prevent sidewall contact on the duallys even with 1/4" spacers between wheels because they are 245/75R16 instead of 225/75R16). So I think I can get at least another year out of the rears.

The front inside shoulder wear is the real concern, and I have one very slow leak in a front that I don't want to spend the time to find/repair since it's at end of life anyway.

I think I'll just buy 2 tires for now for the front. I would like to troubleshoot the alignment before i replace though. I called 4 alignment places yesterday, and only one had a rack/space big enough to align it. They only go by hourly charge, and estimate that it would take 1.5 - 2 hours to align at $170 an hour. Since it's that expensive (more than 2 tires cost probably) I think I'm going to use the digital angle gauge to get camber if I can find a level place to park and use some kind of straight edges to check toe.

Driveability has always been fine other than when one front is soft from the slow leak when it pulls as expected.

[rpaoness]

Used the Klein digital angle gauge to check camber - just off the flat plastic hubcaps, but should be close enough.

Looks like about 0.9 deg negative on the passenger and 1 deg negative camber on both front wheels which likely explains the inside edge wear. I should check toe also, but this is probably my primary wear angle issue I would think.

Alignment specs for an '04 Express Cutaway from google:
Recommended Alignment Specifications (Front)
Camber: -0.35° to +0.85° (Preferred: +0.25°)
Caster: +2.2° to +4.9°
Toe: 0.05° to 0.45° (Total)

[kevm14]

Yas camber is out but toe matters, too. Even if you have more neutral camber, toe being out amounts to dragging the tire across the pavement unnecessarily, but more evenly.

[rpaoness]

Decided to buy two new front tires this week to try to minimize risk as I ship the truck north, probably Friday morning. Pulled off the front wheels and tires and pressure washed everything so far. With the Klein angle gauge, both tires showed about 0.5-0.6 deg positive camber when I remeasured today (looks like less than I got parked on gravel last week, this time on maybe a flatter portion of the driveway - (I am using the Klein 0 feature to get relative angles to-the-not-quite-level frame, which should be good enough for these purposes), which matches the inner edge wear I have, but is just below the spec I found. I didn't expect it to stay 1:1 exactly once jacked up, but thought I could target the same relative angle change I needed and wouldn't have to pick up/take wheels off/adjust/wheels on/weight on and repeat too many times. It seems to track exactly the same even at full suspension droop, so I'll just plan on adjusting once and leaving it.

I think I'm going to target 0.6-0.8 deg negative camber and move on. I haven't come up with a good way to check toe with a tape measure. I'll try to do that before I put it back on the ground. I don't see any evidence of tread cupping which is more common w/ toe misalignment than just inner edge wear.

I was going to order Hercules Ironmans from The Tire Store, but apparently they screwed up and the Load Range E's were actually $155. They highly recommended Advanta HTR-800's for the same budget-but-ok tires in the 225/75R16E size for $105 each, so that's what I ordered. Considering: 1)the very few miles that I do with the truck and that the tires are likely to age out before wearing out (the takeoffs were from 2017 and 2019), 2) driveability has been great, and 3) I've read I may run out of eccentric cam adjustment before it's dialed in, it's probably not worth the cost to have it aligned.

[rpaoness]

Passenger upper balljoint was toast. I ordered both Moog upper control arms with ball joints and new bushings installed for $49 each. The balljoints were $25 each and I figured this would skip me needing to press them out/in and get me new pivot bushings.