Does Alignment look right?

I have 35s and a 6 inch lift on a trd off-road does this alignment look right to y’all? Shouldn’t there be way more caster? Thanks in advance

 

I don't see much difference....is it in spec? Oh...I see your vehicle isn't stock.

 

Way more caster, even with a 6" lift its easy to get them to 1.5 or higher.

Also higher toe with 35's is always a good idea. You need a better shop.

 

Agreed, I would recommend no less than 2.5* caster up to 5 if possible with 0.5* more caster on the RIGHT to compensate for road crown. Camber I would aim for about 0.75* the same on both sides and toe the same on both sides at 0.03"

if you have stock uca that may be why they aligned like that. Otherwise find a new shop. Either the tech was flat rate and lazy or doesn't know how to do alignments... as an alignment tech I can tell you it's more common than you think

 

Agreed on the caster. I'm running almost 4 deg on 2.5 in of lift and 275/70/17s. Great info/discussions on caster in the suspension forum. A quick search / browse should net you all the threads you need make an informed decision.

 

Thanks guys I figured as much this was done at the dealership when I purchased the truck (used) so makes sense that they just half assed it to get it out of their lot.. appreciate all y’all’s reply’s!

 

Those are terrible numbers. Also looks like it will pull to the left.

 

Yeah it definitely wants to pull towards the driver side. At highway speeds it’s pretty hard to control tbh

 

So I do have factory ucas but soon will be switching them out to spc uca as I’ve had good experiences with em on my 1st gen. But even with factory uca wouldn’t you be able to set caster at least at 1.5? Just seems negligent on the service department at this dealership..

 

You can get over 3degrees of cast with the factory UCA's. Gotta move the lowers all the way forward.

 

so they only messed with the toe...common with $50-70 "alignments", not a proper alignment, and they usually only adjust toe on the front only, don't even touch the rear.

now I haven't done alignments for a very long time, and my info may be off...so keep that in mind with what I say next.

does it pull? do your tires get feathering or more wear on the insides or outsides? looks like it would pull...maybe only slightly. when I did alignments I wasn't happy with even a .1 degree difference between the left and right sides but I'd let that slide...but .6 and 0.0? seems a bit much. left/right difference in toe makes the steering wheel off, can make it pull too. camber will really make it pull. caster can too...they all can. no reason they couldn't adjust that on these trucks, pretty sure they have cam adjusters for all of them, toe is tie rod adjusted. if I was doing that alignment I wouldn't have let it leave the shop like that unless you insisted on only paying for a toe alignment...but that toe isn't correct...fwd and rwd vehicles set the toe up on the front and rears a little different, can't remember which, has something to do with when the car accels the wheels naturally flex a little so you adjust to account for that.

as for what your specs should be on a lifted truck, I have no clue, but I would imagine not stock, but I couldn't say.

 

Thanks for your input sir! And yes It does pull to the left for sure and starts to wander pretty bad above 60mph the dealership I bought it from who happen to also do the alignment was horrible so this all makes sense..

 

contact 4x4 shops and see if you can find one with an alignment rack. You'll probably spend 100-200 for a full on four wheel caster/camber/toe alignment, but they would also know what your truck needs to be set at for the lift and for your driving style/location. a lifted on the street truck would probably need a different alignment than one that sees legit off road use

 

fyi, toe will not cause a pull. It will only cause an off centre steering wheel and wandering/ aggressive turn-in. Caster will cause a pull to the most negative side and camber will cause the most pull to the most positive side. Solid axle vehicles have no rear adjustment. So if something on the rear is out to lunch to have damaged/ worn components back there

 

Find another shop or take it back and make them do it over and over and over again until it's right. I recently went through an alignment with another truck where they handed it back to me with steering wheel a good 30 degrees to the left. Tried to convince me things were 'moving' after it came off the rack. When I asked how that was if everything was tight they couldn't answer it. Before I would take it they adjusted it 5 times.

 

much obliged, I was thinking toe probably doesn't cause a pull...but I wasn't sure. I try to preface stuff I say that I'm not sure of...hey I knew someone would correct me but I also didn't want to present that as "this is the truth" lol, that wouldn't be cool
thanks

Yeah front/rear toe being off causes the "dog tracking" and if extreme enough can cause a spin when hard braking. I remember that much at least XD

oh yeah on a solid axle you can twist it a little for toe but that's it, if caster/camber are off somethings probably bent, correct?

thanks again for the correction/clarification.

 

Correct and you technically can do a little twist in the rear but as far as the trade is practised in Canada it's unheard of and I wouldn't do it unless it was a one of a kind car that parts no longer existed for and was a collectible. Don't sweat it I just happen to have developed a sweet spot for alignments and suspension because even though I said I would never be a front end guy cards were just dealt that besides that I happened to have the best grip on it at the dealer so I was kinda forced into it for customer satisfaction and in turn had alot of time to hone it in. Alignments aren't hard but to get good at them you have to do alot and play around with the settings to understand what each angle actually does. Alot of written literature on the subject in my experience can be misleading, out of date or not paint the full picture. Like for example in trade school it was taught to toe out on fwd vehicles and in on rwd vehicles because driving down the road a fwd will pull the wheels forward and toe in and a rwd will deflect back and toe out, which makes sense in theory but in the real work and even further in the module this is accounted for via scrub radius which gives both the tendancy to toe out nessicitating the need for toe in with both applications and this can be felt while road testing in that both will be extremely sensitive to steering input when toed out. Where are if you had too much toe in you would know by a noticable and abnormally evident delay in sharp steering input. Alignments are kinda like riding a bike. Practise alot then soon they'll be childs play to you

 

So I contacted a shop that do alignments for mostly custom trucks/cars. They told me without adjustable ucas it wouldn’t be worth it to get an alignment and I should first get the uca switched out before I do an alignment.. wasn’t what I really wanted to hear, so wanted to get you guys’ opinion on this.

 

If you do have plans to get uca meant for a lift i.e. more built in caster and +camber then you should install them first because other wise you'll have to pay for another alignment afterwards when they are installed. If you have no plans of installing uca you can tell them that and ask for an alignment anyways but it's possible that your eccentrics are maxed out and thats the " best" that could be done

 

So got SPC installed and got it aligned riding a lot better than before and also got rid of most of rubbing as well I’m a happy camper