Tacos in St. Louis area

My dude!! What's crackin man

 

Woah! Who’s this guy??

 

So I finally got around to installing my shims a few weeks ago. Put everything in and realized that I'm an idiot and also needed the extended spring pins to go through the 4° shims...took everything back apart. Ordered the extended pins and finally re-installed everything again last weekend. Pinion angle was definitely a problem and it fixed some vibration but unfortunately the steering wheel shake is still there. Oddly enough the shims fixed the rear end shudder I would get when rolling to a stop (which has been there since new)... makes me wonder if pinion angle was off from the factory.
Anyway, I bought front upper control arms to get my caster in check so I'll have another alignment done after I put those in and have the shop check balance as well. Truck has to go to the dealer to have a new clutch pedal installed so I'm on the fence about having them just do the alignment & balance while its there.

 

Dealership alignment and balance is fine.

 

I was wondering when/if you would report back. How much lift do you have in the back? I have about 2.5" and went with the 3 degree shims after measuring angles, and I didn't have to change the pin. Which is good, because I didn't really think about getting longer ones and would have been in the same boat. Good that it fixed the shudder when coming to a stop, that's where mine was most noticeable. I used a phone app to measure angles after install, and they are within 1 degree, right at about half a degree.

As said above, dealer alignment and balance should be fine and competitively priced.

 

Sometimes with leafs its best to setup the pinion a little low to allow for axle wrap when you gas it. They could have come from factory this way

 

2" Dobinsons L59-110-R, maybe the pins are shallower than other brands but they were nowhere near reaching through on mine. I'm right at about a 1° difference according to my little Klein angle finder thing I use for conduit and tube bending. Now I'm curious what stock angles are like and how consistent they are, seems like some people have the shudder and some don't... either that or they just don't notice it.

 

Yeah, I didn't think to measure it before the lift and I'm not sure what the spec is, but a YouTube video indicated you want them within 1 degree. My OEM leafs actually had a small shim, so it appears they attempt to get them even from the factory.

 

Interesting, mine had no shims from the factory

 

Hmmm.... Now I want to go and recheck both of mine

 

My 23 had no shims. All I did was add a HS 1/2" plate/block to my driverside leaf for taco lean. But there was no factor shim.

 

The shim is easy to miss and seems to be epoxied to the leafs. Here's a pic of my OEM leafs.

 

none on mine... weird

 

Steering wheel shake? check your ball joints. I've been chasing this exact thing. I replaced lowers, I replaced tie rod ends, I replaced a wheel bearing, turns out my SPC ball joints I replaced like 2 years ago were going bad, and the passenger one was VERY bad.

 

I keep hearing about spc ball joints sucking nowadays.

The set I got must be made out of adamantium or something

 

It helps if you grease them regularly

 

That.... I do.

 

Everything is tight up front.

I just bought new SPC upper control arms and they came with "maintenance free" ball joints but it sure looks like they just replaced the zerk fitting with a 1/4-28 set screw....

 

Nothing is ever truly maintence free.....

 

It is if you swap parts or trucks often enough like @LarryDangerfield