Alignment after 5100 install - veer to the right

I installed my 5100s over the weekend and got an alignment yesterday. The truck veers to the right when I take my hands off of the wheel. I think the issue is with my caster being lower on the passenger side. Can anybody confirm? Specs below. Thanks!

 

Those numbers look decent. I would be looking at low air pressure in the right front. If that's fine, then a possible dragging caliper. Also what else was done to the truck?

 

Nothing else is done to the truck other than the 5100’s and 265/75/16 Wildpeaks on Vision wheels. It didn’t do this before the alignment and tracked true after the 5100 install. I have checked the air pressure and it is fine.

 

The numbers look good. And I don't see that .4° difference causing a pull. My experience with pulls has always been brake, bearing or tire caused. Alignment usually causes tire wear issues or instability issues...

Now there is one possibility, depending on the severity of pull... maybe the shop did not compensate for crown in the road. If you drive down a road and have the pull, if you drive up the same road, does the pull stay constant, get worse or improve?

 

For our area, my caster is intentionally offset like yours and just about the same amount to compensate for road crown. I have no wandering. Your numbers look good to me too.

 

1.4 is low, and yes will cause the pull to right.

Usually we can get 1.6-2.0 on coil lifts. You end up with more positive camber, but caster needs to be higher.

 

To clarify, my caster is 2.5 left and 3.0 on the right. His difference is .4 and mine is .5 that’s what I meant. But I’m pretty sure you do alignments for a living so this is where I dip.

 

Caster pulls to the more negative side, so you would want a lower caster reading on the left. MalinosDad's readings are on point for caster. OP that .4 *could* cause a pull coupled with road crown.

 

Agreed, but there is a difference between wander and pull. Pull is caused by having more than 1 degree or more difference left to right. Wander is caused by closer to zero caster and as indicated, it follows the crown of the road. If the road is crowned to the right as most 2 lane roads are, you might get wander that direction. On a multi lane highway and you get into the left, it should be crowned to the left meaning it will wander that direction.

You are also confusing pull with wander. Low caster does not cause pull, it causes wander.

 

Have them redo the alignment. This is a prime example of why just setting it in the green does not mean it is a good alignment. You never want caster lower on the right hand side as it will induce a pull that is very quickly amplified by road crown.

 

That is not exactly true. Like the others, you are confusing facts that will make the OP look like a Richard when he goes back to the shop. Caster on the right does not automatically cause a pull. It needs to be more than 1 degree for that to happen. Pull is not the same as wander. This same wander condition occurs on flat road as well. It is the equivalent of positioning weight in a wheel barrow. You put the weight forward and the steering gets lighter, but it goes wherever it wants. You move the weight back, it gets heavier, but tracks much straighter. Caster difference would be like having the wheel turned while the handles are straight. It will always go in that direction. With caster pull, you let go of the wheels and it puts you in the ditch. That can either be left or right.

 

My experience is limited when it comes to physical alignment. The Commercial vehicles I work on don't have easily adjustable front suspension with exception of Toe. There are some basics of alignment that are universal though...

Camber is the inward or outward tilt of the tire. This affects tire wear and tire contact patch.

Caster (or as I commonly know it as King Pin Inclination, obviously not the correct term for the Tacoma) is the forward or backward tilt of the balljoint/king pin centreline. This causes instability or a tendency to dart. When correct it creates the self centering effect or return to centre.

Toe is the inward or outward pointing direction of the tire centre line. This causes tire wear issues.

When it comes to the compensation for road crown, I will admit I know that there is adjustments made for it but I don't know what they are outside of adjusting the tie rods to centre the steering wheel. If you have more insight into this I am interested in learning.

 

Ok. I know speedfreak asked what else had been done to the truck but I totally spaced and didn’t mention I put 1” Eibach pro blocks on the rear. I noticed the toe on the rear is off from side to side. Could this cause a pull or veer to the right? The blocks have pins but there might be slight amount of play I could adjust the left side to accommodate the toe and get the rear more centered. Just a thought.

 

Not really unless it's extreme. Your toe and thrust angle are fine. Modern alignment machines, even though our trucks have really no adjustability in the back, still do a four wheel alignment. Part of the adjustment of front toe uses the toe readings it gets from the rear targets/sensors attached to the wheels during alignment. The reading is called track toe and it compensates for the thrust angle so the truck tracks straight. If there's a major problem in the rear and it's not fixed and an alignment is done, the vehicle will "dog track" When you're behind a vehicle like this, you can literally see the side of the vehicle, but the wheels are aligned and goes straight down the road, albeit sideways.

 

Could it be radial pull causing it? Maybe a rotation would help.

 

It could cause a pull and doing a rotation is part of the process of diagnosing a pull or even a wander.

 

I think if you swapped those caster readings left to right you'd probably eliminate your wander. We would always tell the alignment techs to put .5* extra caster on the left front. Never a complaint

 

As @TacoSupremo19 mentions, this is unlikely. Thrust angle causes "dog tracking". On a shorter wheel base vehicle like a Tacoma, it takes more thrust angle to create that effect.

I have the Eibach 1" spacers in the rear of my truck. There was not enough play in the guide pins to make any difference in thrust angle.

I still do not believe your alignment is causing the issue, based on the information you have provided. Of course this is diagnosing over the internet... so take that for what it is.

 

If it tracked true after 5100 install but pulled after alignment, then I'd say the alignment is the problem. Some alignment techs are better than others. Not sure about 3rd gen but I never thought 2nd gen felt right with caster less than 2.

Also, if truck feels safe to drive after suspension install (tracking ok), then I like to let the new suspension have some miles on it to settle in before paying for an alignment.

 

Yeah I’m going to rotate tires and see what that gets me. Hopefully it helps some.