A few days ago, my neighbor and I corrected toe and camber on his small utility trailer. Having hung a stump or something with the trailer axle, bending it rearward and upward, the toe and camber was severely off on the wheels. Since I am trained & experienced in wheel alignment & frame straightening, I took the lead and called the shots.

Since that particular trailer was lightweight, we turned the trailer upside down to gain better access to the axle, adjusted the wheel bearings to remove any slack, and aired up the tires evenly. We then placed small pieces of boards etc. under the trailer bed to level the axle to the rest of the world as well as possible. The axle was also made of lightweight steel, so we could get by with using a minimum of something to push from to correct the bend in the axle.

We used a very capable chain secured around each end of the axle as close to the wheels as possible for that something to push from, and used a bottle jack & screw jack to do the pushing. Correcting toe back to within reason first, we pushed at the center of the bend and worked outward in both directions from the center of the bend as needed to prevent collapsing the hollow axle. We also straightened the wrinkled flanged portion of the axle as we went using a large adjustable wrench, hammer & drift.

When toe was within reason, we moved the chain and jack to where the push would correct the bend direction that was causing camber to be off. Pushing in the same fashion as with the toe correction above, we corrected camber to within reason.

Now, toe can be set pretty much exactly without the axle being exactly level but camber cannot be accurately set without the axle being level end to end. The next step then required us to exactly level each wheel level to each other. We used a very straight straight edge, long enough to reach across from wheel to wheel, and a common level placed on that straight edge to accomplish getting the wheels perfectly level with each other and the rest of the world (redid the boards & other shims under the bed of the trailer to exactly level the wheels).

I provided a digital angle gauge and very straight piece of aluminum just long enough to reach from one side of the steel wheel bead area to the other side of the bead area. 90 degrees would signify perfectly perfectly vertical so we used .10-.25 degrees departure from 90 degrees as our positive camber setting. In other words, to allow the trailer to be loaded and the camber to stay within reason, the small lean of each tire/wheel assembly due to camber must be inward at the bottom of each tire/wheel assemble (with the trailer turned upright on it's wheels, of course). Positive camber is when the wheel leans outward at the top and inward at the bottom with the vehicle or trailer upright (a very very small, almost invisible lean).

We again set up to further correct camber with our chain & jack, and pushed in the appropriate area of the middle of the axle until each wheel's camber amount was within the .10-.25 degree positive range. Remember, 90 degrees is perfectly vertical so 90 degrees plus or minus .10-.25 degree must be used. In other words, a reading of 89.90 degrees to 89.75 or 90.10 to 90.25 degrees, depending entirely on what direction your digital angle gauge is turned, would be the target camber reading. Camber correction for correcting more or less camber on just one side can be accomplished by simply moving the jack the appropriate direction on the axle (usually toward the side to be corrected the most).

Then to correctly set toe, we scribed each tire using a spray can of white paint and a homemade tire scribe I had previously made. Simply spray a strip of paint on each tire's tread while turning the tire, and quickly place the scribe on each strip of paint to cause a perfectly straight & very narrow mark around the circumference of each tire.

We measured across from mark to mark on first the front of the tires then again on the rear of the tires. We then set our pushing apparatus up in the appropriate direction needed to set toe correctly. Since the trailer was equipped with bias ply tires, we simply bent the axle the small amount needed to cause the toe amount to be 1/16-1/8 inch positive. This means that the difference in measurement across the front of the tires versus the measurement across the rear of the tires must be between 1/16 inch & 1/8 inch with the shortest measurement toward the front of the trailer. Radial ply tires require a smaller amount of positive toe than bias ply tires do for optimal tire wear. Slightly positive (1.32 inch) to 1/16 inch would be preferable for radial ply tires.

Of course we double checked our camber settings before we called the job finished, then turned the trailer upright again. Total cost of this repair: Maybe 3-5 cents for the paint used! Cost of replacing the axle: $250.00 and up.