I posted a while back that I had a really bad shimmy in my front end and it would also pull to the right side. Well I took it to an alignment shop and he checked everything out and took it for a test drive. Turns out that I have a broken belt in my right front tire. Exactly what is a belt? How did he come to that conclusion? And what causes it? These tires have only been on the car for a year.

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

there are severl belts wrapped around the tire to help it hold it shape and/or improve weight capacity. usually what happens is the belts seperate or move around within the tire. when this happens, the tire can sometimes become two different diameters or let a bump form in the tread. either way, time to buy some tires. the structural integrity of the tire is not what it was or should be and could fail prematurely. i would keep speed to a minimum and drive as little as possible.

zedpapa

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1970 dodge dart w/225 /6 bored .040" over, holley 390cfm w/vac. sec., compcams 252s, clifford shorty headers w/2.5" exhaust w/flowmaster, f-body 11" front discs, aluminum A-833OD, 8 1/4 w/3.21 SG
soon to have 5 gears!!!

My work truck separates all the time (load range E tires) The separation in my case occurs between the body and the sidewall. It causes shimmy , looks ugly but in my experience (literally dozens of separated tires) nothing untoward happens.

You can tell it has separated because the side wall of the tire is uneven or kinda bulgy.

Our local tire shop would replace a separated tire on a pleasure use vehicle as a matter of course. We just let it slide on my work truck as it it caused by high speed, high loading commercial use.

Try taking it back

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

My sidewall looks fine. Is it possible for it to seperate internally and not be visible? I will take it back if I can ever find the receipt.

Thanks for the pic!

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

I never had a tread seperation for 30 years. Then I bought my '84 D100. I had 2 flats from road debris and 2 from tread seperation, all within 15,000 miles. The sidewalls on the tires looked fine but you could see where the tread was raised up from the broken belts.

All the failed tires were ones that came on the truck or some I had laying around. Age is also important to a tire, not just tread depth. It is recommended that trailers tires be changed every 5 years (this number varies, I've read from 4 to 7 years), no matter how many miles are on them. I don't know how old the tires I had were. Now I have 2 new ones on the front.

It's time I do something with the tires on my '68 V200. It has a trunk sticker for the Sears brand tires that states they were installed in '77!

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Slant Cecil

A belt separation on the side wall isn't as bad as on the tread. I have had belt seperations in 2 tires, one was a retread on my wifes Chevette, she didn't even mention it to me, I had to drive it to know it happened. Then I warned her how dangerous it was. The second was on a really old bias-ply snow tire I had on my Valiant. the tire looked new but I knew it was around 15 years old. the second one bulged out almost an inch, it really shook the car. both time it was on the passenger side rear.

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