My Alignment after lift

Once you get your ucas. Make sure your guys align in this order, caster, camber, toe.

 

rog thanks for the tip!

for OP, i'm interested why his caster is positive beyond spec and not the same on each side, does that affect his centering issues?

 

The alignment tech told me he adjusted it a tiny bit for the crown of the road so it would pull just a hair to the left or something. To me it tracks pretty strait going down the road but like I said the wheel doesn’t center as snappy as it did before my lift

 

they fed you a line. more caster on those spc's no problem. that's why folks get em.

you can get it dialed in with the right numbers. my truck is in pieces getting re done yet again, but until he pulled it apart my numbers, in SPC's:

caster 4.0 both
camber 0.0 both
toe 0.05 in, both

yes this took a lot of work and skill, but yes, I'm dialed in and zero'd. SPCs are a big part of that.

 

I'm not OP and was using OEM UCAs

ahhh makes sense

 

ha, didn't see that.

 

If my caster was that with SPCs I’d be pretty upset about it. I think I’m gonna leave my truck alone for now and not be picky about it. It drives fine

 

I’d be interested to find out as well

 

caster affects centering in smaller ways when at speed. mainly the self centering in a normal alignment comes from having your toe correct.

 

Yeah, basically has to do with the leverage in the steering system, if i understand correctly (I think of wheel casters on chairs or castered forks on bikes) and you always want that moment behind the hub/ball joint (i.e. positive). on flat roads, you want that as even as possible side to side.

So his toe is +.07 degrees on both sides, giving him toe in. Positive toe is when the front of both tires begins to face each other. Positive toe allows both wheels to constantly generate force against one another, which reduces turning ability. However, positive tow creates straighter driving characteristics. But does that force translate to less snappy centering?

 

I get a low soft rumble in the right rear when costing down around 30 to 20mph. Just installed a SteelCraft bumper with a 2"EMU Medium Load lift.

Any thoughts?

 

O and I think there are alignment issues too

 

I recommend starting another thread

 

So I played around with the truck on the way home from work and it turns out when I let the wheel go it returns to center but not all the way. It’s about 15 degrees off and never fully returns home. I notice it more so when turning left. Wheel doesn’t come back 100%.

do I need more caster? What would need adjusted to fix that.

I don’t see it as a major issue but it’s annoying me lol

 

^^^or is that just a characteristic of having a lifted truck with heavier tires?

 

here's what I got. it felt like I steer to the left a very minor amount now, but it could be in my head.

 

The shitty return to center has to do with SAI being below spec and unequal side-to-side.
That's why I suspected your SPC alignment tabs being installed differently side-to-side.
Done anything to damage something; particularly, the spindle?

 

It’s fine for now, if it starts riding like crap, cross that bridge when you get there

 

No the truck has 6k miles on it and and I got the lift installed yesterday and then did tires and alignment today. Is that something that could have been damaged during the instal of my life or the alignment?

 

If anyone’s interested here’s my alignment post UCA install. I went JBA high Caster and it made a huge difference in drive ability and safety. Also FWIW Firestone’s lifetime alignment is a steal, alignments every 6 months pretty much forever. If you Offroad or change your truck a lot it’s especially attractive. My shop has Tech’s familiar with lifted trucks so they were ok with out of spec settings not sure if that’s the case everywhere.