Rear axle alignment

DonziGT230, I tried that already. No change.

 

Yeah springs can bend, but the chances of one causing this would be very remote, more likely would be lateral twisting of leafs (main spring actually)This can happen in extreme situations of articulation, do you offroad ? & if so have you done anything that might push them past their limits ?

(gotta answer truthfully here or won't be able to help much..& don't be shy I'm sure you've not done the dumb ass things I've done offroad..)

There again, without physically having the truck to look at & no pics showing every concieveable angle its really hard to diagnose

 

I thought about this but didn't want 10 pages of clamping force/cold torque/hot torque/wet torque/dry torque/no torque/too much torque/dork torque & so on....


But ya know what ?? If he sheared an axle pin it could do this....not as hard to do as one might think...

 

It would allow the axle to shift ever so slightly by the time it translates to the outside wheels it could very well move forward (or back) 1/2-3/4"

 

treehugger....

 

Now THIS helps a lot. You have SAI highlighted in yellow. Is THAT the angle you are worried about? Because SAI is "Steering Axis Inclination" and has to do with the FRONT not the rear. The number for the rear that are important is "Thrust angle" which according to your printout is zero. This means that the rear wheels are tracking with the front wheels perfectly straight. It does show setback as being a .2 inch difference and that would explain some of the reason why there is a larger gap, but with that you are talking setback. Track width is also at .2 inches of a difference.

I would be confident to believe at this point that there is either a slight difference in mounting tab locations (Doubtful, but an option) of the leaf springs, or a difference in suspension bolting and settling. This means that as suggested above, a good idea would be to loosen up all of the rear suspension mounting points from the leaf spring mounts to the shackle mounts, as well as the u-bolts. Consider lifting the leaf packs up off the mounting tabs on the axle and cleaning/inspecting for a problem there.


The Steering Axis Inclination (SAI) angle is created and measured in degrees from the lower ball joint to the upper ball joint or through the center of the strut mount found on most front wheel vehicles. The illustration uses ball joints to represent the angles. This measurement of degrees includes the measurement from lower ball joint to the upper ball joint or the upper strut mount and true vertical (the tire actually sitting straight up and down). The SAI angle doesn't include the camber angle. This is because Steering Axis Inclination is a non-adjustable angle. When this angle is out of specifications there is likely something bent somewhere in the steering or suspension.
The idea of a wheel alignment is to have all four wheels on the ground and in parallel with each other. A bent or damaged part would certainly have a diverse effect. We often tweak the alignment procedure to compensate for crowned roads and sometimes oval tracks. For the most part a wheel alignment is a tire saving, suspension and steerability adjustment.
The included angle is the fixed SAI with camber angle included. This is the why it is called the included angle. If you look closely the larger of the two angles is the included, and the smaller the SAI angle. The major difference between the SAI and the included angle is that the camber angle is included to the SAI resulting in the included angle. It's important to note that a large difference between side to side indicates a collision or bent component and further inspection is required.

 

UPDATE!
I loosened the U-Bolts & re-torqued them & had the truck re-aligned on another alignment machine:


On the way home I drove another vehicle while someone drove mine & I didn't notice any dog tracking. When you look @ the truck from behind the right rear tire still sticks out more but I guess it is aligned with the front because the vehicle is rolling straight.

As far as I know there is no left/right adjustment & it's minimal so I guess this is as good as it gets. I did a crude measurement & it shows that the right rear tire is 1/4" more towards the rear than the left rear:

LEFT REAR:

RIGHT REAR:

 

BamaToy1997 & chris4x4,

Thank you both VERY MUCH!

You both cleared things up for me.

Thanks again!

 

Thanks DoorDing

 

No worries man! Anytime!