Truck pulls right... after proper alignment

Again after each desert trip I would go in and get an alignment regardless as I am not nice on my truck when in the desert.. LOL

That 3 year $119 I paid was well worth it to me.

 

The way the adjustments on this truck are set up mean that they are less likely to fall out of alignment. This does not mean that it is something you dont need to worry about. Even without any tire or wheel changes, once a year is a good rule of thumb. Go look on Groupon, i get mine done for $35 to 40. (most places charge $40 to 50, but you need to haggle with them with the fact this its a front alignment only).

 

I get my tires rotated and re balanced every oil change duration so every 6-7k miles and was doing the alignment 2-3 times a year.

 

This is the minimum i would recommend for any truck like mine that is exclusively a highway miles, city truck. I cant speak for anything outside of stock height. If you want to be more conservative, you can bring the camber more towards 0, but i wouldn't go past -0.2 on each side. The dual A-arm setup in front will for the most part maintain the camber angle, so there wont be and increase in camber as the suspension is compressed as in a single control arm or trailing arm suspension.

Camber does not exclusively cause tire wear, that is all on excessive toe and toe out. Camber improves turn in at the cost of straight line traction. Toe causes straight line stability and tracking AT SPEED at the cost of tire wear. Caster trades off high speed stability vs low speed reaction time.

If im horribly mistaken, then i would like some explanation why there is any reason to have positive camber or positive toe on this or any truck other than to provide self centering at the cost of tire wear. Minimal toe in and a well maintained steering rack will provide all you need.

 

Another tidbit. Tire/wheel changes have nothing to do with alignment. Alignment is based on the positions of the hubs. Years of 'you have new tires, you need an alignment' have caused folks to think they are related.

There may be some reason to use more unusual numbers that suggested above for certain off road applications, maybe at a competitive level of speed desert racing. But I seriously doubt any street driven unit needs variance from that, as Caligula has suggested.

Based on the fact that lowering my previous cars didn't cause me to change my alignment numbers (although an alignment was needed to get back to them) I'd suspect the same goes for lifting. Don't see why the numbers need to be different than stock ht vehicles, but an alignment will be needed to get back to those numbers. Depending on how the lift is done, other suspension modifications may be needed to realign properly.

As Caligula suggests, toe is as much an enemy of tire wear as any other component. While I've run a bit of toe out on some vehicles, it was for competitive purposes where a lot of hard turning was required, to have a faster response. The downside was trammeling on the highway on any but perfect pavement. A touch of toe in always gives more road stability, and as long as its not too much, won't have much affect on wear.

The purpose of high - camber, both F & R (on IFS, IRS vehicles) is to have max grip in hard turn conditions as the suspension moves and the tires go in a positive direction. No other reason, other than folks who have poseur suspensions and have to tuck to get the tire in the wheel well. For a street driven truck, just a pinch of negative camber should be great.

 

Good points all around. Zero toe or positive toe will result in annoying at best driving experiences in the city (which is 99% of the driving most of us do). The guys at Firestone would hate me with my lifetime alignment on my BMW M3, cause on autocross days i would go in at 7am to have my alignment setup set to 0 and -3.0 front toe and camber respectively, only to return at 5pm to have it set back to -0.2 and -1.5 toe and camber. This would happen about once a month in the summer.

Lowering and lifting would have an effect on the suspension on a regular car, as some rear end suspensions (at least with RWD cars) are designed to increase camber as compression on the inside wheel increases. Front caster would also be affected as the offset angle from the upper mount to the spindle would change. Though in talking about our trucks, the rear end will always (god willing) be at 0 toe 0 camber. The only reason i would think of changing the front would be for the higher center of gravity and resultant worse handling, worse suspension response, and worse body roll. In that case i would increase toe and decrease camber just to increase stability.

Agreed also that high negative camber (more than -3.0) is for poser slammed Honda Civics with cut springs. The kids have to run such high number to get the wheels to fit inside the wells.

 

Funny. What little I know about alignments and settings also comes from running autocross, both NASA and some SCCA.

I wasn't as energetic as you though. I used a bit of compromise settings, but they were really at the aggressive side of the factory spec. I simply changed tires, shock settings and went racing. Then again, we do autox year around here, sometimes 2x a month, even locally.

However, my alignment was set with me in the driver seat after corner weighting the car. So it was pretty stinking accurate. Aggressive enough tire rotations were a 5k thing for sure on 'regular tires', and if I street drove the race tires they were only good for about 15k life. As much because of compound as alignment. But they were grand fun on the street and mountain roads!

 

I have taken it in and they pretty much said the same as you. I am purchasing a new rack and pinion and replacing it myself. This one to be specific.. https://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=3600078&cc=1388987&jnid=700&jpid=0

I'll let you know how it works and thank you all for your help.

 

Did the new rack fix your issue?

 

Being that this was in 2015, I'd be seriously interested to know how the aftermarket rack has held up for 8 years. The general consensus is they develop leaks and fail much sooner than an OEM rack, it would be good to hear from someone who installed an aftermarket one.

@05Taco4bye4 short story, I bought mine in 2018 and it has had a right-pull ever since, not really a pull but a drift, if you let go of the wheel it will head for the ditch. In my case I can confirm: after replacing almost everything else in the front end (see details here and here) to avoid the expense of a rack, it was definitely the rack. At any speed you can now let go of the wheel and it just goes where you pointed it, drives like new.

 

Ive had a cheap Detroit axle rack for 6-7 years now with no issues.