Alignment question

I've been battleing front suspension and steering probelms on my 03 4X4 TRD O/R for the better part of two years now. The truck has a nasty case of bump steer. The slightest bump will cause this truck to almost change lanes. The truck also wanders all over the road.

I've replaced the shocks all around with 5100's. The fronts are set to the middle slot so she's got about 1.5 inches of lift in the front. I replaced the Steering rack bushing along with the Sway bar bushing while I was under there.

It running a year old set of Revo's set to 34 psi front 32 psi rear. Tires are like new with no signs of wear.

My truck also suffers from the loose steering shaft so i'm taking that out to be welded together this coming weekend.

I had the truck aligned after the front end work was done but looking at the sheet it appears that they didn't do any caster adjustments as that section of the sheet is blank.

I've been told that caster is the adjustment that controls bump steer. The more caster the truck has the better it will track. IS this true? Could a lack of Caster be the problem?

 

Yes it sounds like your caster is much to low. This is normal when lifting Tacomas, however yours sounds like it is way to low. A good Alignment tech should be able to get at least 1.4 deg positive caster on each side. What you may want to do is get an aftermarket set of control arms. They come with more caster engineered into them. Low caster will let the vehicle wander and also be more susceptible to bump steer.

 

Thanks for the reply Dan. From what I've read and been told these trucks should have somewhere around +2.5 degrees of caster to track straight. I spoke to the local dealer last night and they say there is enough adjustment in the front end to get +2.5 and more. Looks like it's off the the alignment shop.

J

 

To be honest, every truck is a little different when it comes to alignment specs. The type of lift and tires you have will vary. The one shop that got my truck aligned, did not even use printouts. I would say 90% of a successful alignment is the tech doing the work, not the cpu screen.

 

I would check wear in the tierod-ends too.