How close is close enough?

Ok so here’s my setup:
Brand new TRQ lca’s while I pimp out the factory arms
Brand new KSP high caster upper control arms (urethane bushings and ball joint)
Bilstein 5100 shocks with Emu 885’s with about 3500 miles
No sway bar, tie rods in good shape
Bison off road alignment cams (rears full out, front one click OUT from center)
1/4” taco lean spacer on drivers side.
Aal in rear, 1” higher than front.

I’ve put about a hundred miles on it between yesterday and today. Yesterday the measurements were identical with a slight positive camber, just touching the outside line on both sides, not sure what that would mean in degrees.
Today, I got the measurements in the pics below. From the front they look square, no in or out lean. Also everything was torqued to spec sitting on the ground.

Is this close enough to head to the shop to get the toe set and find out what my numbers are? From what I’ve read, a slight positive camber is better than negative. That seems counter intuitive, but I’m no expert. I also realize that without a sway bar holding them together these measurement could vary a little more from moment to moment. Don’t know how much all this affects toe, but it drives fantastic, arrow straight and stable with zero pulling or wandering.

 

Looks way more than close enough to get you to the shop.

I've driven on worse...

 

Good enough, no worries about sway bar.. shop should be able to align truck with or without it. They might mention it’s not there though

 

Sway bar doesn't affect alignment

If you're driving on public roads, sharing the space with other vehicles it should be installed

 

They didn’t need to touch the camber/caster. Toe and go!

 

Reckless gang

 

Sway bars dont affect alignments, I personally like a 3.1-3.7 degree caster so it looks like your alignment is fine, or similar to what I would see on my truck.

I dont run sway bars and my alignments similar to that. You just dont want perfectly equal left and right sides for the caster or road curve for water drainage will cause your wheel to appear offcenter.

Personally I would want more of a 0 out of the toe and the camber numbers, but for me running oversized tires, if the casters in the green its wrong. lol

 

That does not look ideal. But it’s going to depend on what you’re able to get out of the parts. By trying.
They either did try. Or didn’t. Toe and go is defined as not trying.

“they did not have to touch the camber caster”
No, they did, they just didn’t because they found it fun to rip you off sub $50 toe and go charge $150 call it an “alignment”

my camber has mostly been 0 which even that is supposedly too positive and should be more negative.

positive means tilting out, less contact, uneven wear, and worse handling.

For my truck I would be down for a cheap toe and go right now to have it straight and fully align it myself later.
Which is not the same as alignment and price of an alignment.

how do I know your caster isn’t that because the rear LCA is pushed out and front is pulled in, moving the knuckle forward which you may not need
Well if I push the front LCA out (if it allows) that should give you better camber, take away some caster, without issue.

looks like they didn’t get the camber same on both sides. So it probably wasn’t adjusted. And probably wasn’t caster sweeped which is the point of a $10k rack.

if your goal is a toe and go that can be done at home with jack stands, string, ruler, and pieces of linoleum tile with grease sandwiched in between to act as swivel plates.

1/2hr alignment check is not uncommon and cheaper. It is not an alignment. It is a check.
You know what the difference between a check and setting the tie rods is? Nothing. 5 minutes with a 24 and 15 in my case. Not an alignment.

If you had me do that as a side job, fair labor book time would come out to $25. Hopefully you didn’t pay significantly more than that.

 

- You need to find a flat and level ground to check alignment.
- A bubble level isn't precise enough for camber. Need a digital level.
- The Bison cams are sloppy and can shift a little within the width of the cam tabs. This has the effect of causing the toe to drift over time, since the front cams are right under thr steering rack. I think this is what you're seeing.

 

They did fully check the caster and camber, and they were willing to try a different setting on the bison off road cams, but it would have made it too negative as I had already tried it. That was as close to zero as it can get unless I go back to round cams which I don’t want to, as I already had to bend the tabs back once. The caster is in the low 3s, the camber is almost zero, and the toe and steering wheel was put right. and I know my numbers for sure since they have a decent rack. I feel like it was a hundred bucks well spent. I forgot to mention it’s got a marlin crawler gusset kit as well. I feel like it’s perfectly ready now for wheeling and driving a few days a week.