Alignment Assistance

Had a lower ball joint replaced in September, the attached photo is the alignment I received. The truck has pulled to left for a while now and the tires have uneven wear. (This started well before the ball joint replacement)

Going in for new tires next week and want to try and have them fix up the alignment.

Running 265/75/16 tires
1.5" Dobinsons lift
Stock UCA's

From what I've seen, you want near 0.0° camber and toe with 2-3° of caster? Do you think it's worth going with upgraded UCAs? I've been looking at the Dobinsons.

 

Has to be the ugliest, most confusing alignment printout I've ever seen. If that's all the caster they can get, it ain't enough with stock suspension. You really do want around 3 degrees positive caster with .3-.5 less on the driver's side if you want to compensate for road crown and, yes, zero camber is a good place to be.

 

I agree 100%. Also at the top, "without firm suspension", like what does that mean? And it says the wrong tire size... Appreciate the insight.

 

Sport has a firmer shock setup so maybe that? Tire size is also irrelevant because they measure off the wheel/hub to get a flat plane. Some machines reference it because it can tell you the trim.

Either way, lack of caster aside, nothing on that sheet is causing a pull but you were probably seeing a little inner tire wear with that negative toe. I would think you can do better than that on caster with only 1.5" though.

 

That's just the information their computer picks up from your vin or model number in stock form not what you have on truck now.

If you look up leaf springs in the toyota catalog you will see firm on the sports and most of the later double cabs. There's a lot of different leaf springs thru the years but it basically standard and firm and new revisions of those with damper blocks and stuff. All probably too minor to notice.

 

Ya I definitely chalk up any vibration and pull to the uneven wear patterns on the tires. I have a feeling they maybe marked stuff, swapped out the ball joint and kinda half assed the alignment. Pretty much just giving me back what I had. I went 4ish years with no alignment after countless off-road adventures. I'm sure I kicked it out of alignment myself.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing. My eyes hurt from looking at that nonsense.

 

Even though people usually say you need uca’s for 2 inches plus, I got new ones at 1.5”. Reason being is because I was getting uneven tire wear because even at 1.5” of lift, your camber is going to be positive (which was probably contributing to your uneven tire wear) just to get caster in spec, and your caster also looks too too low anyway. With my 1.5” lift and freedom off-road uca’s, I was able to get 0 degrees of camber and 4.5 degreees of caster (which was too much caster in my opinion, I went back and had the caster set to 3 degrees which feels perfect) you should also find a good, skilled alignment tech from a speciality or off road shop. I wasted a lot of money at big o tires and Firestone, trust me hardly any big box or tire shop has good alignment techs

 

They focused too much on getting camber perfect. Caster is far too low.

Typically we shoot for 2 degrees caster and balance the camber that is forced onto it.

 

I'm bringing the truck to a local, family owned tire shop with some nice modern equipment. Hopefully they can dial it in. Depending on how the alignment goes, I'll ask them if they think upgrading the UCAs would help/be worth it.

 

Is there any reason for them not to be able to 2+ degrees caster with near 0 camber? My wheels are SCS F5s with 0 offset of that has anything to do with it.

 

They definitely won’t be able to get 2+ degrees near 0 camber without uca. Before I had uca’s, with a 1.5” lift, with the adjusters completely maxed out I had 1.5 degrees caster and 0.4 degrees camber

 

Lifted trucks cant get that, so you let the camber climb as the caster climbs.

You want the highest caster you can get.

 

Update - upper control arms are on the list. Most likely going with Dobinsons. They're simple, sealed and have 3° of caster built in. FYI - Micky Thompson Baja Boss ATs should be on your radar if you need new tires.

 

Looks like you got a toe set. That should help with tire wear. I'm guessing your adjusters were maxed out which is why they didn't adjust camber and caster.