Alignment advice

Hello all. I am sitting on 285/70/17 on kings and icon tubular uca’s, do these numbers look right?

 

Nope. Looks like the tech did the bare minimum. Those caster numbers should be almost identical, and the camber should be adjusted closer to 0.

 

Green means good. Red means bad. Did you ask them to adjust caster out of spec?

 

I would be willing to bet if you looked at your tie rods that they don't bear a single tool mark. That minimal adjustment could have been done by turning the wheel and that is probably what happened. This isn't a lot different than my recent dealer experience. Your caster is awful. It should pull to the right.

 

They just adjusted the toe and nothing else. You would want to have the camber equal on both sides and closer to zero, but it's the caster that's really off. And just being in the green is not enough, as there is quite a range that is considered to be in spec. If you don't want to compensate for road crown then you set the caster the same on both sides. If you do want to compensate for road crown you set the caster to be a little less on the driver's side - maybe .3-.5 tenths less on the driver's side, remembering that caster always pulls toward the side with the lower number.

 

alingment is whats scaring me from putting on 285s and 1" lift. there is no alignment specialists where i live and reading through the forum everyone has a different take on it.

 

It's not like it's rocket science. There are some basic tenets that guide you and then there are limitations of specific setups that define some of the parameters. There can be a range of what works well but within that range the relationship between the right and left side camber and caster needs to be maintained and the toe needs to be set properly. Anyone operating an alignment rack *should* be able to do all this correctly and with a little gentle nudging from you it should not be hard. But then again, who knows.

 

Well, this is the second shop I have dealt with. The first shop I asked them to move the wheels forward for some clearance then align. The second shop recently switched from my toyo open country MTs to Wildpeak at3/w and had them look at alignment, said all was good minus a tad on the rear. I had a coworker mention that it looked like one of my tires or both seemed toe in. I called the shop and asked and they said the caster is to compensate for road crown? I am just starting to understand all this. I do plan on taking it to a shop that works with lifted trucks and knows what they are doing.

 

The caster IS to compensate for road crown, but they've got you at a 1.3 degree differential between the passenger and driver side where what you really want is about 1/3rd to 1/2 a degree less on the driver side, not a degree and a third. Those numbers are going to pull you to the left which is usually not a good thing.

 

Thank you very much for all the great responses!

 

He has aftermarket upper control arms. The point of them is to gain extra caster. The numbers should still be close.

 

I've never had a successful alignment on the first try. Never. They don't care.

 

Time to learn a little about alignments. There are a number of sites that detail the fundamentals of the geometry. Once you know the 3 angles that are adjustable, you need to understand the specifics of the Tacoma suspension. There are lots of youtube videos out there that explain it. In basic concept specific to the Tacoma start with the fact that you can only adjust the front. The rear has a solid axle. There is nothing you can adjust. Next the 3 angles that are adjustable are Camber, Caster, and toe. Camber and caster are adjusted on a Tacoma by the lower control arms. There are cams that are rotated to change these angles. Because of this, when you change one angle, it will change the other. This becomes a challenge for inexperienced techs and scares them off. You can easily end up making it worse. There are also limitations on how much can be adjusted. This becomes a problem with lifted trucks. You have new UCAs that have built in extra caster.

This is good and bad because caster tends to be low anyway on these trucks and a little extra caster helps especially when you put larger tires on. The bad is that by adding the extra caster to the UCAs, it moves the wheel closer to the wheel well where there isn't a lot of room to begin with. It also puts more stress on the suspension, but that isn't a great concern.

Once you have camber and caster set, then you adjust the toe. Toe is what causes the vast majority of tire wear. This is where people get confused. They think that adjusting to impacts pulling. It doesn't. Your steering is connected to a single point. You could have one wheel at 20 degrees and the other at -10 and it will still drive straight. It will wear the tires, but it won't cause you to spin in circles. When you are looking at toe, don't worry about left and right. You are concerned with total toe. You want the toe to be slightly positive on a rwd because when being pushed, it will open up and ideally when driving you want zero toe so that they are pointed perfectly straight.

 

Awesome post Sungod, ty!