Let's Talk About Alignment on a Minor Lift

In this post I'll talk about my experience aligning a 2001 Tacoma 4x4 with a full Old Man Emu heavy lift kit. I will also focus a lot on the rear wheel alignment as it seems that because of our fixed axles, the rear toe alignment can be all over the place and very hard to adjust.

I hadn’t really given much thought to rear axle alignments until recently. My other Tacoma was new and I sold it before the first set of tires was dead. Now, I have a 2001 4x4 Tacoma and I just did a 2-3” inch full OME heavy lift kit with FN Five Star 16x8 -25mm wheels and Toyo Open Country AT2 tires in 285/75R16.

Front First

I did the front suspension first months ago on the old tires and I let it settle for a long time. Then I recently did the read leaf springs and shocks and installed the new wheels and tires.

I had to do the pinch weld mod as well as trim a lot of plastic, front and back. Turns out I had a lot of trimming to do at the back of the front wheel well. When I took the truck to get it aligned I realized the caster was at 0 on one side and .7 on the other. Which explains why the wheels were so far back. But anyway, let’s move on to the rest of the alignment…

Then the rear

First things first, my tech was very much concerned about the rear axle alignment. Numbers where at:

-.41 degrees toe on one side and .20 on the other. This of course leads to one side canceling the other out, but I still end up with -.21 negative toe total. Weird. He tried adjusting it by undoing the front bolts on the leaf packs as well as the shackles, but we didn’t take it as far as undoing the u-bolts. Regardless, the axle ended up about the same: (-.40 / .22 = -.19 total toe)

So, he then aligned the front to the rear and got the alignment done. However, I’m considering taking it back if I can come up with a plan to adjust that rear axle. Mainly, I’m considering undoing the U-bolts while it’s on the rack and seeing if the axle can be adjusted at all. Then tightening it back up and see how it ends up. We can do that with the truck on the rack and live with the alignment machine to see the movements as we do them. Plan B would be to have adjustments shims/spacers with us at the time in case we need them.

I’m not sure how much tire wear a -.21 of outward toe would cause, but I know it’s not ideal. Maybe 0 is not easily attainable on a fixed axle, but at the very least I’d like to see a .1 positive total if possible.

Unfortunately, I don't have alignment numbers from before the lift. So I don't know how that rear was on the old leaf packs.

Rear camber is at -.05 and -0.1 and I’m quite OK with that.

Now the front alignment:

I’m not even going to talk about the numbers before apart from what I already said in regards to the caster being at close to 0. I had done up the entire front suspension so it’s to be expected. I even when through the trouble of taking off the driver’s side shock a few times to add trim packers and spacers until I got the ride height perfectly equal on both sides WITH a full tank of gas.

So in the end, at the front I ended up at:

Front CAMBER:

-.08” camber on both sides (Surprised we were able to get negative camber with the stock UCAs). I went with negative camber because daily, I drive about 15 miles of hard cornering through a mountain pass. I’m hoping the negative camber with offset the tire wear I get between mountain driving and freeway driving. Originally, my camber was at 0 and I was wearing the outside of the tires heavily.

Front CASTER:

1.2/1.3 - This puts the caster one degree higher than it was before, which is better. However, after reading a whole lot more about it here, it seems it should be higher. I want to fix a leak I have in the steering rack as well as do the steering column tack weld mod to fix the steering wheel slop… and finally replace the bushings in the steering rack with a set of poly Energy Suspension bushings I got. When I do this I’ll take the truck back to the shop and see if we can increase that caster while still attaining the negative camber.

Front TOE:

0.7/0.6 - which is quite OK. I think I’ll ask to go a little lower when it take it back next time. Though I don’t think it’s much of a concern.

In regards to that rear negative toe:

Mentioning again that I now have a -.40 / .22 = -.19 total toe in the rear, I have to ask… do I have to be concerned about tire wear in the rear from now until the time I take it in to attempt getting it adjusted? I suspect not as the front still takes the grunt of the wear from braking, cornering and all the mountain driving I do. But still worth asking.

What are your rear alignment numbers?


What have you done to attempt to correct rear alignment?

 

I'll comment on the rear axle... I have the same issue.

And yeah I'd like to fix it. Because those tires are gonna scrub going down the interstate.

Right side is toe in 0.32 and left side is toe out -.33

Since there is no adjustment, only thing I can think of is to loosen u-bolts and try to adjust the axle. What a pain!

Check this out:

Well lets see now... My rear toe is out, measures 0.32° off, and 1/16" = 0.0625 Therefore, my rear tires are scrubbing almost 35 feet sideways for every mile! Ummm Fawk, yeah would like to get it fixed.

Let me know how you make out if you can fix it.

 

Dang. True. But you need to keep in mind that SOME toe is usually useful, although a lot of guys here aim for 0 toe. I also run 0 toe on my Miata. I don't think the 1/16" measurement on it's own is enough to tell the whole story. But still, since the recommendations I've seen here call for 0, .01, or .02 of toe, the -.06 is definitely too much.

I need to look into this again while my tires are still new. I've been busy with other things, but I have an appointment with another tech, a friend on mine, and we are going to look into it further.

 

I think were on the same page.

My comments were only in relation to toe on the rear axle.

For front wheels, slight toe in is recommended when rear wheel drive.