Tow dolly alignment (fixed frame)

I had a dolly that was eating the right tire. I took it to a trailer shop and had them align the wheels. Required actually bending the axle. Charged me $20.

Moved to Dinghy Towing forum from Towing for additional response.
Barney

Thanks everyone for their replies and info! I called some places back and changed the question (to bending a frame) and everything changed. However, I re-measured the toe and I must have been really tired because the toe was exactly at zero. I did this while unhooked and the dolly leveled using my jack. I discovered the reason it was swaying so bad was because my ball mount was really high. I changed it to a lower one and it did much better. Still swayed a little, but nowhere near as bad as with the first one, so I have the correct one on the way. And dropping the tire pressure will probably fix anything that the height will not.

As far as the towing capacity...do you know how they determine that? I hadn't even checked the capacity before. I flat-towed a 98 New Beetle (2700 lbs) back in December (same destination as this time) using a tow-bar and it handled beautifully. The car did not even complain. Note that I was not driving as fast as other people on the highway and was taking my sweet time to brake, always making sure I had PLENTY of space ahead of me. I have also seen other people towing even bigger trailers loaded with tons of stuff (not to mention the RVs featured at Can Am, although they modified the hitch receiver to a type III). I am sure that they specify 1000 lbs for a reason, but I am trying to figure out why. I will be towing a 97 Grand Am GT Coupe (2800 lbs) on the dolly, which does not have brakes at this point. And the hitch receiver is class II with 3500 lbs towing weight and 350 lbs tongue weight capacities.

Finally, just to double check if I have to have the coupler level or the tire frame level when towing. I have attached pictures showing how I level both of them.

All of your input is really appreciated!
Leonardo

If you recheck the toe and it's indeed out, call the truck spring and axle places back and instead of asking them to align a car dolly, ask if they can bend an axle. Dropping the tire pressure is exactly the right thing to do if it's unloaded.

Brian

We had ours straightened at a local Truck Frame and Alignment shop. Ours old dolly had a tow in of 3/4" and wore tires out in about 4000 miles. Yes it had a solid axle with the spindles welded on. They had the equipment to bend the axle or what ever back into perfect alignment. Alignment bending was less than two replacement tires ($200).

Beverley and Ken

You might want to measure again. 1" toe-in is HUGE! If it's that much off the inside of both tires should be smoking hot.

I have measured toe hundreds of times on a race car. I misread the tape more than a few times when tired and at the track. :o

Some body shops with frame racks can do this. The problem is that most don't have the tools to do the measurements for castor or camber. The good thing is toe can be measured with nothing more than a tape measure.

Good luck and let us know what you find out.

ldestrada5 wrote:
the car I'm using to tow it (2006 Chevy Impala 3.9L with Class II hitch receiver).

:h

That car has a listed tow "rating" of a thousand pounds. Link
Dunno what your "class II hitch" is rated at- maybe 2,000 lbs.? Not that it matters since the weakest link governs what you can do. You say nothing at all about what kind/size of vehicle you think you're going to tow, nor is there any mention of a braking system for the tow-???

Point being: I think you've got bigger problems than tow dolly alignment!

Thank you for your responses.

VintageRacer: I was afraid of that. I did read on a towing forum that you can still re-align the fixed frame dollies by having one of those frame machines bend it back into alignment. Is this possible? And if so, where?

mrekim: I will do that today when I go back home and post the results of the more exact toe measurements.

vic46: That sounds like a possible solution. How bad do the tires wear when having this low of a PSI? And if I understand it correctly, the final pressure of the tire should be 10-15 PSI, correct? Not just dropping the pressure 10-15 PSI. The reason I am asking is because I am towing a car (gift for my brother) about 550 miles, then towing the empty dolly back those 550 miles. I don't know if it would affect it somehow. I will still try it tonight or tomorrow to see if it works.


Leonardo

When towing without a load, drop the tire air pressure down to between 10 and 15 PSI. It will follow like a puppy.

ldestrada5 wrote:
HI did a rough measurement of the front and back of the tires and it seems to be toe out by about an inch.

If you can get the trailer up in the air with jack stands you can make a simple alignment measuring tool as follows:

1) get wheels off the ground so you can spin them - but close to the ground.

2) Put a nail through a 2x4 board or plywood - something you can hold steady with your foot.

3) slide the board into the tire with the nail facing up so that the nail point will dig in just a little. You may need to bend the nail a little to get the point in a good spot.


4) Step on the board to keep it from moving.

5) Spin the tire. You need to spin it so it does not dig into the nail head. You don't need much pressure for the nail to leave a line on the tire.

6) There should be a very fine line in the tire left by the nail head.

7) Repeat for the other side.

Now - at the height of the hub, measure the distance between the two scribed lines. It's important to try to measure at the same height off the ground front and back/side to side.

If you can't get both wheels up off the ground easily, you can do the scribing one side at a time and then measure on the ground.

This should get you to within 1/16" when measuring.