F-450 cupping front tires

Finally got around to pulling my F-450 in the shop. Been having an issue of it pulling hard right under braking, steering seems a bit sloppy, and its wearing the front tires bad. I bought this truck a couple years ago with 275k miles and no knowledge of its previous history, aside from the guy said he sunk a bunch of money into it and after 2 dead engines he was done with the truck. From what i can tell the front-end has been re-built at some point as everything has grease zerks, but no idea when or what was done. At this point i've put about 23k miles on the truck, and haven't touched the front-end, or done any mechanical work aside from the engine.


When i jacked the truck up i tried seeing if there was any play in the front with a 5ft pry bar, and got virtually 0 movement. Everything feels tight, looks good, and you can easily turn the wheels by hand. The only thing that seems worn is the steering box, going to try to tighten it up tomorrow and see if that helps any. So far i've ordered 2 front shocks, steering damper, new brake hoses, and re-man calipers for the front. I plan to take it to the alignment shop once its back together, but other than that i'm not sure what to do. Is there some mechanical issue i'm missing, or is it just a poor alignment? Was honestly expecting to find some slop in the ball joints or steering linkage, but it all looks good.

BTW, both fronts have about the same wear patterns. They are regroovable Firestone F320 or something like that, think i have them at 75psi? Don't know if they are balanced.

7

Shocks.

That would make sense considering i just pulled the driver side shock off, was able to compress it by hand and it hasnt even tried to expand. LOL

Welcome to dually life. Steer tires will always get cupped and destroyed unless your taking them off the rim and switching them with the back tires. My 08 F450 if it with factory 19.5's and the 22.5's it has now. Same with all of your Type 4 fire engines at work the front tires get chewed up fast!

It's definitely more common on 19.5s. Mostly cause they ride rougher than the pickup tires, and it's hard to tell when the shocks are done.
I'd saye just plan to change them at least every 50k, if you're using parts store shocks. You might get a bit more, but as expensive as those tires are, I'd just change the shocks, lol.

Well that sucks to hear. LOL Both front shocks were dead, put cheap shocks from Napa on it. If it didn't ride so rough i'd consider spending some money on shocks for it. LOL These were $25 each so if i can get a year or two out of them that'll be alright.

weekendwarriorfsw32 said:

Welcome to dually life. Steer tires will always get cupped and destroyed unless your taking them off the rim and switching them with the back tires. My 08 F450 if it with factory 19.5's and the 22.5's it has now. Same with all of your Type 4 fire engines at work the front tires get chewed up fast!

Click to expand...

How often should we swap front to rear? Is there a good pattern to use, front to inside rear, etc or just move them to the back?


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Finished up the front-end Thursday and put some miles on it, surprised by how much better it rides and steers now with just new shocks and brakes in the front! Think we're going to throw on a new steering box and tires, have alignment checked and roll on. Definitely going to pay more attention to shocks from now on.

Nice! Glad it's working better for you.


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