Front End Alignment help?

Okay, so I got my front end alignment yesterday and here are the results. The tech said that there is no more adjustment left, they are maxed out. Not sure what exactly he meant by that and he couldn't explain it although he said I needed to look around to see if there was an aftermarket shim kit or something like that. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, not sure if the alignment is right or not, hopefully someone here can chime in and let me know. The truck still seems to pull.

 

so either something is bent, cams are siezed or the little tabs on the cams are bet over.... hard to say which way that would go. ur camber is throwing it right but caster is goin left. i bet it goes right because of road crown huh?

 

looks about normal with a lift kit only way to fix it is after market UCA's just had mine align'd it looks about the same . the cam adjusters on the LCA's are maxxed out

 

castor wont effect tire wear? you sure? i know the more positive castor you have on a on road vehicle, you do start getting tire wear... maybe im just thinkin all effed up right now.

let me find the info

 

camber & toe wear tires, caster does not, it just annoys you into not wanting to drive it.

 

posted by esb4130 on DR so im not taking any credit for this... this guy knows his shit.

caster. this is something that i think im one of the only people around cares about. ive seen so many shops build front end kits with no regards to the caster. this is the angle of the imaginary line that travels between the upper and lower outer pivots on the spindle, when looking at it from the side (not the front or the back). most stock vehicles and alignment shops will set your car or truck with 0 caster. they say that anything either way will cause excessive tire wear, and to some degree they are right. but...in offroad, where the terrain is not made of asphault.... you NEED negative caster (spindle leaning top towards rear of vehicle). 3-5 degrees for a truck thats being driven on the street and some offroad is good....if your going for more offroad worthy, bump it up to about 8. after awhile it will become counter productive though, and can give the truck wierd handling properties. there should NEVER be any positive caster in the cycling of the suspension.

 

sorry to pop bubbles guys, but castor does wear tires. going through turns, the way it places your tire on the road, there is wear from castor angles...

if you would like i will copy and paste the full post which you guys can read through and undestand exactly what your front end is doing with all these angles. mind you that this is directed toward building your own suspension like a few of us had but the basis doesnt change just because its stock suspension vs. custom.

 

here is the full post from esb4130 on DR. again i DID NOT do this write up. this guy is an amazing fabricator and i would take his word over the peanut gallery any day:


1. camber at ride hieght. if your planning on driving it on the street...camber at ride hieght should be 0 or slightly negative (negative camber means tire leans in on the top). theres no place for positive camber, at all.

2. camber change. your wheels are going to change their camber throughout the cycling of the travel. but, the change should be limited and in the right spots. there should never be any positive camber. i think the ideal setup, is a degree or 2 of negative at droop, 0 at ride hieght, and around 5-6 degrees negative at full compression.

3. bump steer. none is best of course....but with 3 different planes of motion, getting rid of bumpsteer to 0 is, litterally, impossible. you can make it unmeasurable though, to the point where it "looks" perfect. this is affected by length and pivoting points of the tie rod.

4. caster. this is something that i think im one of the only people around cares about. ive seen so many shops build front end kits with no regards to the caster. this is the angle of the imaginary line that travels between the upper and lower outer pivots on the spindle, when looking at it from the side (not the front or the back). most stock vehicles and alignment shops will set your car or truck with 0 caster. they say that anything either way will cause excessive tire wear, and to some degree they are right. but...in offroad, where the terrain is not made of asphault.... you NEED negative caster (spindle leaning top towards rear of vehicle). 3-5 degrees for a truck thats being driven on the street and some offroad is good....if your going for more offroad worthy, bump it up to about 8. after awhile it will become counter productive though, and can give the truck wierd handling properties. there should NEVER be any positive caster in the cycling of the suspension.

5. kingpin inclination. this is, again, an imaginary line from the upper to the lower pivot on the spindle, but this time looking at it from the front. as you draw this line and continue it to the tread surface, it should hit roughly between 1/3 and 1/2 the distance from inside of the tire to outside. (meaning that the imaginary line hits, at furthest, the 1/2 way point, and at least the 1/3 point, measuring from the inside of the tread). this is the point at which your tire pivots on. think about it for a minute, at what would happen if the tire wasnt even pivoting on itself...as if the person made the spindles with no inclination...the tire would actually be moving a TON when it steered.

these are the most basic concepts in building a-arms, and even there, some people will dissagree or have a differing of opinion on whats the "right" way to set it up, and even on some vehicles the degree of adjustment may need to vary. example...my tundra is only capable, stock, of having 2 degrees of negative caster, but the handling improved VASTLY over the stock settings, and the alignment guy told me i was retarded for setting it 2 degrees because it would be undrivable. well.....look what he knows! lol.

seriously though, the front suspension is what not only holds your vehicle up, but its what controls it. its very vital that this stuff is properly setup, most of all of cousre..that it is strong enough and doesnt have clearance issues to where itll bind itself. this is something you have to take seriously, and shouldnt attempt unless you KNOW what your doing.

 

ain't no bubble to it......drove with caster low for 6-8 months after lifting and before getting UCAs to correct it. Daily driven on frwy for 60 miles at 70-75mph on AT tires. If there was anything besides normal wear from rolling on cement, I would have seen it. What wear would it cause and where? Had no scalloping and had no edges going away.

 

ok well you can have your bubble if you would like, however mathematics and angles dont lie. so either the math is wrong or you are.

 

after my lift I had several alignments done. I got a tech who was willing to adjust and re adjust untill my Caster numbers came up. You can trade one number for the caster, i think we traded camber for caster. Caster should be over 2.0. I did not get there but it is closer than your numbers OP and it drives fine. No UCAs
end numbers

camber
-0.2 0.0

Caster
1.2 1.6

Toe
0.07 0.05

 

You asked people to chime in. They did. You found your own holy grail answer. Go with it.

 

ok.. ill try my best to break this down... when you turn your truck, you load the outside tire with a higher weight than the inside yes? yes... its called body roll and that is what sway bars help get rid of... just because the sway bar is there doesnt mean the weight shift no longer exists. its still there. now as you weight that wheel, the suspension on that side will compress a bit. as it compresses and follows the range of travel, if you have normal castor it will make sure your tire remains in normal contact with the road giving normal tire wear. the more castor you have, the contact patch as the suspension is loaded can change, beginning abnormal wear. yes certain people on here may have had good luck, or this wear may increase more and more as we go into custom and one of a kind set ups, but as ive said before, math is math and measurements are measurements. neither of which lie.

 

i just copied and pasted. yes positive castor aims toward the rear of the vehicle... if you look at the size of that post, sorry we werent correction nazi's in making sure we corrected his every little mistake... you guys dont think its correct then sure... go with your ideas. im coming from my side where ive built my own suspension, and ive seen this all in action. while setting up my front end on this truck, i will take pictures of the angles and post them in my build thread along with progress of tire wear for you non-believers.

 

this is what mine looks like... i do tons of alignments on lifted vehicles, the name of the game is get the most caster as u can with leeping camber within spec. any more than .5* difference between camber and caster could cause a pull. id rather see ur alignment like this guys^^^^^^

 

X2. Negative caster is the problem...

 

no he meant by angling the top of the spindle toward the rear of the truck that is a positive castor adjustment not a negative. negative castor leans your spindle forward.

 

now this right here.... is a true effin solution!!!!