Question about alignment

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John Zuber

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After replacing ball joints I took my ST in for the final alignment. I knew the camber/caster was out and had already installed the required kits. The final result after alignment was everything in ?the green?...the only problem I noticed was that my steering wheel was ?slightly? turned to the left. I?ve told the shop and they will make it right, so I will be bringing it back in...but here?s my question. I marked both (left and right) steering tie-rods with a dot of white paint, so I know exactly where they were after alignment. I then turned the steering left tie rod 1/5 turn to push the left tire out...and turned the right tie rod in 1/5 turn to pull the right tire in. The end result is a steering wheel that is now perfectly centered, and the truck still tracks the same. So, would my toe-in/toe-out still be correct? And would that affect camber/caster?
 
There is a thing called Toe out on turns. The toe changes as the suspension moves up and down and when you turn, So in short its all affected.



I hate the "green" range....



ALLWAYS ask for a "preferred" alignment especially since you have the kits installed.

if the shop cant do it, find one that can.



Todd Z
 
JohnZ,

Todd Z is correct. The phenomenon is known as "Bump Steer" Your alignment can be within tolerances, but can change when your suspension goes up or down during a turn.



Most alignment shops will align the suspension to fall withing the "Green" tolerance range recommended by the manufacturer. However Ford also has "Preferred" settings which are much more accurate and better compensate for Bump Steer.



Ask your alignment shop to adjust your alignment to fall within the "Preferred" Settings, not just within the "Green" tolerance range.



...Rich
 
Your toe angle "should" be the same after your adjustment. It should not affect the caster/camber.



Did they check the rear alignment and reference the thrust angles?



I agree with Todd- there is "in the range" and there is dead nuts aligned.

 
-.5 is the preferred setting for camber.



Caster should have about a .75 split otherwise you will have a drift/pull, but he actual angle isn't too critical as long as the left side is about .75 less than the right side (that's what is known as the "split").



Toe is just as critical as camber, if not more so. It should be in .12 degrees.
 
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The preferred settings still didn't eliminate inside edge tire wear on my Trac. I just installed the caster/camber kit and had another alignment. I had the camber set at -.5 last time so asked them to put it at 0 this time. He couldn't get it there. He could only get it to -.2 when the kit was at their limits. Hopefully that will help.
 
Since new, my truck has never had an alignment until just recently. I began to notice some outside tire wear on the passenger side (very little, but I could see it)...and I know the alignment shop. When they first started the job, he stated that the driver side lower ball joint had a small amount of play. So he corrected the toe in/out, charged me very minimal, and I did my own work to replace the lower ball joints...and obtain the camber/caster adjustment kits.



So...back to the shop after the parts were installed. Yes, they checked the rear alignment, and said that the driver side camber/caster was dead on, but that the passenger side required adjustment...and that the toe in/out had to be reset because of that adjustment. I have no idea about "preferred" vs "green"...most of the number I saw has "zero" variance once he was done.



But my question is more in reference to my correction for the steering wheel. I know that I adjusted it correctly...that is I moved the tie rod to push one tire "out" and the other "in", which in effect corrected the steering wheel orientation. I can't see how that would have changed camber/caster...and that's what I wanted to know.
 
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