Looking for St. Louis area properly handeling Super Duty for temporary tire swap.

[Chart]

My excursion is driving odd, and bad tires are one of the few things left to check.

Looking for someone in St. Louis willing to swap tires/wheels from their SRW SuperDuty with mine for several miles one day. See how your truck handles with my tires/stock wheels, and how mine handles with yours. Afterward we'll swap back of course.

I'm running 285 Bridgestone Revos, about 6 months old. Preferably the other party is also running 285s, but that's not required for this test.

Please PM or send me an email, and we'll find a time convenient for you. - Thanks.

[Cord]

Chart-instead, try rotating the tires. First swap the lefts for the rights and see what happens. Then try swaping them front to back.

[Waterfoul]

Revo is supposed to be a good tire.... have you talked to the shop that installed them???

[outlawinil]

Man I just sold my superduty with 285's last Friday to make room in garage for new one coming.

Had a problem with our navigator after last trip to St. Louis. Handled like **** when we got home. Hit one of their famous potholes big enough to hide a toyota in it. Took it to shop and seperated the steel belts in drivers front. I thought it just needed realigned. Tire shop said very common untill they get out of the coffee shop and patch the holes.

[Chart]

Originally posted by outlawinil
Man I just sold my superduty with 285's last Friday to make room in garage for new one coming.

Had a problem with our navigator after last trip to St. Louis. Handled like **** when we got home. Hit one of their famous potholes big enough to hide a toyota in it. Took it to shop and seperated the steel belts in drivers front. I thought it just needed realigned. Tire shop said very common untill they get out of the coffee shop and patch the holes.

Was there a bulge or any outside appearance to show the separated steel belt? What did the shop look at to determine that?

Fowl: Yes, the revos are very good tires, the best I've ever ran in the snow, have an aggressive tread pattern but are very quite. I've always put bridgestone in the same catagory as Michelin (sp?), and have had many of each, but right now the revo's are the ticket.

Cord, I'll try the tire rotation.

I'm assuming you had the ball joints checked. Not sure how many miles you have but Fords, especially the Super Duties and X's are known for tearing up ball joints as the factory units arent greaseable.

[Chart]

In the past few months:

4 new greasable ball joints
new shocks
3 alignments
new ball joint inserts (in the yolk)
new hubs, cause @^#&)&$ bearings ain't available no more
new track bar
tie rod ends tested fine
gear box tested fine

Had about 97000 when the problem arose, 102000 now.

Thank you for your good suggestion though.

[outlawinil]

To tell you the truth there was nothing visible wrong with the tire, but i never crawled under to look on the inside. I just assumed it was knocked out of alignment. Sometimes tire seperations if caught early enough you can just barely feel them with your hand.

I know what you guys are thinking- he screwed me out of a tire- not the case as he is one of my best friends and fellow boater and is also the owner of the shop. He's got a very good reputation.

Mr. Demeanor is right Ford ball joints will fail but will not allow you to properly align the front end because of too much play. You said aligned 3 times so I assumed the ball joints are ok.

If you have done all that, my suggestion is to rotate tires and look for wheel weights missing and would try balancing the tire/wheels at a shop. I'm sure a tire seperation will show up real quick on a balancing machine.

Mike you should call Kand K repair in Arnold and ask for Charlie Taylor. He was one of the top Ford Techs in our area. He was also the service manager at Reuthers Ford for a few years. He should be able to help you.
Call me he also does work on the side and may help you out that way.

[Chart]

Update: Took the truck to Bridgestone/Firestone and they discovered a loose upper tie rod end on the pitman arm. Was not noticeable under load, and required a pry bar to show the sloppiness. I approved the repair, and it now behaves quite well. The tires are okay. Don't know how to explain the improvement with a rotation, other than different roads after rotation.

Now it has a little memory-steer issue near TDC, and I'm afraid one of the new ball joints is defective. But that is a different thread.