Forest River RR19 toy hauler. Very strange wear on just one tire.
These tires all have about 14,000 miles on them.
Three of them look perfect but one tire has strange wear. this is rear, drivers side. Trailer has not had a "toy" in it during this 14K miles. So not overloaded.
I jacked up trailer to check bearings and all are good. All bearings were replaced 3K miles ago. everything is good. No loose lug nuts, no loose bearings. Breaks are not rubbing.
Why it is strange is that the wear is only in two spots. It is not consistant around the whole tire.
Anyone ever seen anything like this? I'm going to install spare and monitor as I have 1200 miles to get home.
These tires all have about 14,000 miles on them.
Three of them look perfect but one tire has strange wear. this is rear, drivers side. Trailer has not had a "toy" in it during this 14K miles. So not overloaded.
I jacked up trailer to check bearings and all are good. All bearings were replaced 3K miles ago. everything is good. No loose lug nuts, no loose bearings. Breaks are not rubbing.
Why it is strange is that the wear is only in two spots. It is not consistant around the whole tire.
Anyone ever seen anything like this? I'm going to install spare and monitor as I have 1200 miles to get home.
JBarca wrote:
Hi,
I will try and help. This pic of yours
That wear pattern points to an excessive toe out condition. There may be a small amount of negative camber mixed in too. But I would suspect excessive toe out to the main issue. Basically, the wheel is at a toe'ed out (pointing outward) angle to the direction of camper travel. This condition creates a high scrub angle to the road and is burning/wearing up rubber just going forward.
You mentioned you used a level on the wheel, that is a good quick check "but" in order for it to be accurate, the camper "must" be parked on a true level spot were both the left and right tires are on the same level spot. Once the pavement under the tires is dead level, then you can put a level on the rim and see what you have. A wheel that is exactly level means it has close to 0 degree camber. Which points towards the axle tube being at total capacity. Under less than total axle capacity, the top center of the wheel should be pointing outward from the camper indicting positive camber. When the top of the wheel points inward towards the camper that is negative camber and comes from axle overload or bent axle spindle/tube.
Your level check may not be accurate.
If you want to drill down into sorting this out yourself and you have access to some basic tools and some advanced the further you want to check it, see this post. TT axle alignment & install - Detailed (long lot's of pics)
In the second paragraph is a link to my prior tire wear investigation. Between the 2 posts, a level, some spacers, a tape measure and an amount of knowing what to look for you can see big picture what may be going on.
Your camper does not look new by the cracking paint/rust on the frame and do not know how many years you owned it or if you bought it used. You may have inherited a manufacturing issue from the factory with hanger locations being off. Or the axle tube became bent along the way. And that combined with excessive spring bushing wear and or axle weights.
Have you ever weighed the camper axle by axle? And ideally by each wheel location. All 4 tires are not normally loaded equal. Many times 1 or 2 tires are loaded more than the rest. Camper floor plan and how much cargo is stored on which side can create a heavy wheel. On the heavy wheel the spring will flatten more and will change the location of the axle. This is normal but when the weights or spring gets very flattened, then it can be part of a tire wear issue along with other factors. Meaning this may be a combo problem, not one smoking gun.
Since it "looks" like your truck mirrors are in the pic, this heavy wear tire is the left rear tire. Yes/no? That means the rear spring hanger and bushing set on that rear leaf spring is creating the location setting of the axle. If the hanger is out of location, the wheel will be out of location too and out of location in relation to the front axle assuming the front axle is even in the right location. And or the you have an axle spindle that is bent outward.
Did this just happen, like in the last 4 months or you never towed that long and hard with it before to notice? Is this the 1st or 3rd set of tires on the camper you put on? If you measure tread depth across the face of all 4 tires you can see if all 4 wheels are rolling in alignment.
The tire you have now, you said it is not wearing the same all the way around. HEADS UP, the tire may be coming apart inside. A spin test can help tell that. Jack up the camper and spin that rear tire. Place a board as a feeler across the OD tire face. Spin the tire slowly and mark where you started. The OD should run true round. If it has a section with a hump, the tire can be starting to come apart inside.
See this video of me doing a spin test this spring when my BFG LT tires had tread separation. This was the 3rd one I caught before it let go. This link will take you to my Flick'er site with the short video https://flic.kr/p/HxGnZp
This location was the out of round area
The wood tire feeler touching the high spot
The clearance off the high spot
Inside the tire coming apart
If you have an out of round bump condition like that, change that tire ASAP. It is on borrowed time. Put the spare on and be looking for a new tire to get back a working sound spare. In your situation you really do not want to be without a good working spare. You will be wearing the spare when you put it on in that location.
Hope this helps
Let us know what you find.
John
Follow all this and you will find your problem. If it were me, I'd start with the last item first - the tire wearing only in certain spots, plus that tire running hotter, to me says the you have a tread separation happening. Often, just jacking up that one tire and spinning it, while looking at the tread surface, will show "wobbles" or "humps" in the tread and/or sidewall. This needs immediate attention.
CharlesinGA wrote:
About the frame rust. If the OP intends to keep and use the trailer, they need to do something. I probably would be difficult to impossible to get the frame sandblasted and painted. I would buy a large can of POR15 and a brush and paint over the rust, that is what the POR15 is intended for and it does this well, seals it to prevent continued rusting. You then must overcoat it with another paint as the POR15 is UV sensitive and must be protected from UV.
Charles
Great suggestion....I wire brushed my trailer tongue and painted it with Rustoleum paint many years ago.
Here are some pics of the old gal. This is was our 1995 Layton.
Before
And after (note the old school Reese Dual cam system...still have it in the garage ready to go back into service ;)) and yes, that is a 1 inch rise ball on top of that hitch head...thanks to JBarca for that tip. I never had an issue with the back of the trunnions hitting the trailer frame.
Thanks!
Jeremiah
