the bjmoose daily driver build

I've not been happy with my alignment for a while. Actually, it's possible that I've *never* been happy with the alignment going all the way back to when I lifted the truck. To review:

First year after I lifted, I had either zero caster or slightly negative caster, and the truck was "twitchy." So I got SPC (light racing) control arms and installed them. I had my usual mechanic align them and right away, leaving the parking lot, suddenly the driver side wheel was rubbing the rear of the wheel well. So I set the arms to the "E" position (net +1 caster) and had them do it again, and I did a cab mount chop.

That was mostly OK, caster was around 1.5, and I probably should have left well enough alone.

But when I put on the new bumper, that sagged the suspension a bit so I added a 1/2" top plate on top of the strut. While I was down there messing with the suspension, I noticed that the driver side alignment eccentrics were set near MINIMUM caster. That was just weird I thought. So I dialed the driver side for max caster (and max rear wheelwell clearance) knowing full well that I was signing up for another "difficult" alignment.

I drove the truck over to see George at SWAT customs in Fremont. TW has a high opinion of George. It drove like the hunchback of Notre Dame, limping over there pulling hard to one side, steering wheel canted, and VSC light on. I told him I had the bottom eccentrics set the way I wanted, and I wanted him to realign the truck using only the adjustments on the SPC control arms - not the factory eccentrics.

Credit to George, he did what I asked, and the truck drove with some semblance of normalcy. Compared to how I drove it in - it felt straight. But I never got an alignment sheet from him. He doesn't even bother to keep the printer connected to his alignment machine. And over time, I came to realize that the truck still had a fairly strong pull to the right. I *really* started noticing this when I switched my daily-driver over to another car that tracks straight, and then last weekend did the *long* road trip up to Hell Hole and back. Man, I was cursing that pull by the end of the 10 hour drive on Sunday night.

Couple years back @jberry813 wrote a "how to align your truck at home" thread. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/how-to-do-an-alignment-at-home.252256/

I determined by gosh and by golly I was gonna do that today. Alignment techs-earning-their-hourly-rate be damned, I was gonna spend as long as it took to get my truck driving the way *I* wanted it. So I picked up the Harbor Freight angle gauge, and a square welding rod, cut it to 18" long and dived in.

Here were my first measurements:



A little explanation on those numbers: when one's negative and the other is positive (i.e. one's IN and the other's OUT) you add them together. But when they're both the same (e.g. both OUT - which is weird) you subtract the one from the other. (It's even possible to have negative caster) That's why 1.0 and 0.8 yields 1.8, while 0.3 and 1.2 yields 0.9. It's not an arithmetic error.

Using the HF angle gauge, Whenever I'd measure, then remove the angle finder and bring it back and re-measure, I'd find that it was only good for +/- 0.2 degrees or so. There was that much "variance" in the measurements. So I never bothered to try and make any adjustment that was less than 0.3

Initial Measurements:
Both driver/passenger Camber within 0.2 of zero.

Driver Caster 2.7 - credit to George.
Passenger Caster: 1.3 (!)

OK, with a 1.4 cross caster, it became clear why the truck pulls to the right.

See: http://www.aa1car.com/library/tr295.htm and other sources but "A greater [caster] difference side-to-side can make the vehicle lead towards the side with the least caster." Yep, bingo.

So, how come there's more on the driver side than the passenger? I checked the factory eccentrics: both where I last left them, set for absolute max caster. Now, on the DRIVER side, George has actually set the SPC control arm to the full neutral position: Position "G." That's weird - but we don't need any more caster over there.

But on the passenger side, it's still clearly where I set it back when I installed the arms and did that first alignment: Position "E"

(See the SPC sheet to review what those mean: http://www.spcalignment.com/instructions/25480-INS_WEB.pdf)

At this point, the only thing to do was to bump up passenger caster, and the only WAY to do it was to restore the passenger side SPC control arm back to "factory default" position "D." I couldn't budge the top nut. My trusty 15" crescent wrench failed me. I had to run to the autoparts store for a 1.25" socket and can of PB blaster. That (and a cheater bar) cracked it open, and with the truck jacked up to unweight the wheels, I was able to reset Position "D" and then mostly zero out passenger side camber. My final measurement was 0.3 degrees "OUT" or positive camber. But like I said, I wasn't bothering to correct anything within the +/- wander of the HF angle gauge. So at 0.3 it remains.

But when I swung the caster, the result was epic:



Re-measure of driver side caster went down to 2.3, but passenger side was up to 2.6 !

One of the shortcuts I discovered about measuring caster was that 20 degrees off center was *EXACTLY* one full turn of the steering wheel. So after the first cut with angles and sheets of wood and lines on the floor - I took all subsequent caster measurements by simply turning the wheel two full turns back to top-dead-center.

The control arm adjustment created a *BIG* change in toe - I was now toe-out by an INCH and a HALF. (!) So I burned the rest of the afternoon measuring and adjusting toe, then driving the truck and tweaking the adjustment to get the steering wheel as close as possible back to dead-on-center. Jason uses paint to highlight a "nail line" on the tire. I found a strip of 2" painters masking tape wound around the tire worked just great.

Lessons learned:
1. If you have any aptitude for angles and math - don't be afraid to do your own alignment. You don't need an alignment rack but you DO need a FLAT garage floor. But alignment techs just want to get the job done and move on to the next paying job. And they typically don't understand the finer points of adjusting SPC control arms - even if they do understand the caster/camber eccentrics. (And not all of them understand even that.)

2. Trucks aren't as straight as you think. All else equal - I ended up with one control arm at the ZERO factory neutral position, and the other at +2.

 

Bravo sir. I finished my lift on a Sunday and found a tire shop on a neighbors recommendation that was open. I think my caster was at 2 and 1.9 after the first alignment. Bought a 3 year package for less than 2 alignments. Manager sold it to me saying "if you go wheeling, bring it in to check. Change suspension bring it in, etc. Long story short they're tired of seeing me and I of them. I have done every mod besides setting gears on the diff and welding sliders (and alignment). I'm done letting someone I don't have a good feeling about touch my truck. Good on ya Steve for the home job, impressive

 

Hey Steve, since you're not so happy with the FT 8900R, would you sell it??? I'm interested because I want something with crossband repeat and 6m/10m coverage.

 

Let me mull that over.

The advantage of this one is its already installed, programmed, working great.

Is there another yaesu that shares the exact same form factor with single rather than dual capability and operates on 2m/70cm?

Also, you know the DIamond 8900 antenna that's required for 6m/10m is a massive 4 ft long thing that can't mount on an NMO mount and costs about a hundred bucks, right?

 

Hey Stan,

Probably not worthwhile.

I'd want enough for it to replace it with a new 7900r - which is 310 from HRO.

The thing is, a new 8900r is "only" 390 from HRO.

Now, if I'm you, I'm not paying 310 for a four year old radio when I can get a brand new one for only 80 bucks more. That's a pretty unreasonable price for a four year old radio.

So my suggestion is to either buy it new, or to keep an eye on the used Ham market, where if someone has one to sell, they'll be pricing it more reasonably.

Sorry.

 

sub'd Love a single cab second gen! Looks great

 

I keep coming back to look at the bumper.

 

I have the same bumper on the way. For your lighting, what brand(s) are your lights and how do you like them? How are they configured in terms of spot/flood/whatever? Thanks very much, love the truck and the care in setup.

 

22" curved dual row light bar in the middle and two 7" bars in the corners - angled slightly out. I'm not set up for max speed rolling down the road at 100mph visibilty - but on any curved road, I can see EVERYTHING up the road and to either side of the truck.

 

http://www.amazon.com/MICTUNING-Cur...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

and

the 7" bars don't show up on Amazon any more, sorry.

 

Thanks, bjmoose, that's a big help. Any tips or gotchas to getting them installed and set up?

 

Wiring up lights is pretty easy. You wanna power them via the battery, tap the power wire with a solenoid that's controlled by a low power switch, protect the circuit with a fuse. All that's left is to decide whether they're triggered via dashboard switch or the high beams control.

 

bjmoose, can you use the 7" floods as fog lights when driving on the road? Does being set back in a bit in under the bumper provide enough cutoff that you're not blinding oncoming drivers?

 

LED spots/floods make LOUSY fog lights. They light up the fog in front of you so you're driving into this bright opaque white sheen of nothingness. Far worse than ordinary headlights. If I make the mistake of turning those things on in the fog, I can't see *anything* and immediately turn them off.

For fog, you want purpose fog lights with a low cut off so that they illuminate the lines on the highway and stay as much as possible below the moisture particles.

EDIT - I re-read your question and see I didn't answer it. No, the bumper does not provide any cutoff to speak of. Which is actually nice for driving deserted forests at night - but does mean you've gotta shut those things off immediately in the presence of any other drivers.

 

Thanks, bjmoose, that's very useful information. I have a set similar to yours on the way. I'll keep the 7" floods I have on the way and add a pair of the Rigid dually SAE lights to the center portion, similar to the setup on the CBI page for the bumper.

 

I like your build!

 

love this mounting spot!

 

Good looking truck man! Do you have anything good, bad, or otherwise to say about the Goodyear MTRs? I'm looking for my next set of tires and I also use my truck for DD and weekend warrior activities.