sechott

I am hoping for help, I have a 88 4x4 pickup that I just got aligned at a national tire chain store. The mechanic said it was way off-I believe this because my tires were getting feathered and inside wear. However, the mechanic told me he could not get my passenger side caster in spec. It is 3.6 degrees while it should be between .8_1.8 degrees. I am a bit disappointed because my truck now pulls to the drivers side in which it didn't before.

I'm not sure but wouldn't it be puling to the passenger side? The mechanic said nothing was bent or lose.
does anyone know if adjusting the drivers side caster from 1.2 to 1.8 degrees would make a difference? I think it might help because it would decease cross caster by .6 degrees. But still out of spec.
Last question, what can I do to get my caster back in range, is there any shims?

cheech2112

there are no shims for them your best bet would be to change the lower control arm bushings with a new set also be sure to get the ajusting bolts as well they may be worn with the bushings as well ..... its a comon thing for the bushings to wear out, i mean it is an 88 haha but i would try that and see what you come up with , and the first question depending on if it was a positive or negitive degree or not if its positive then it should be pulling to the passangers side if negative then it should be going to the drivers side

sechott

Thanks cheech, nothing on the receipt has the neg dash so I believe it is pos caster. This makes me think an error may have occurred during the alignment,though I don't like second guessing the mechanic. I see that the passenger side caster cam is maxed with the lobe towards it's tire. While the drivers side is turned to it's tire slightly.

Do you think it would be a mistake to turn the drivers lobe a bit more to it's tire to see if it might straighten up the pull?

MudHippy

I don't believe that negative caster angle can even be achieved on these vehicles through adjustment. No matter what you do adjustment wise, you'll end up with some degree of positive caster. But don't quote me on that.

Also, there's no "caster" cam. Caster adjustment is determined by the relationship between the front and rear adjuster cams on each control arm. The closer each cam's angle is to the other, the closer to 0° caster. As such, any camber adjustment that isn't achieved by matching the amount and/or angle of the front and rear cam adjustments will change the caster angle. Simply put, move the front and rear cams together/the same amount, then caster angle is unchanged. Move them any amount inequally, then caster angle is changed. When they're adjusted to the same position/angle relative to each other(as in when the front and rear cam's angles are equal) you'll be as close to 0° caster as you're going to get.

To the best of my knowledge, any unevenness in the caster angle(from left to right) can cause pulling to one side. But it's more likely to be caused by uneven tire pressure, and/or improper toe-in adjustment. And less likely to be caused by uneven camber adjustment.

I hate trying to explain wheel alignment. The picture is so clear in my head. But I really struggle to put it into words.

Bottom line: Teach yourself how to do your own wheel alignments. These vehicles are about as simple as it comes to align properly(or close enough). Most folks tend to overcomplicate/overthink the matter. When it's really not that difficult at all. Then you can paint the picture in your own head. Instead of asking someone else to.

One more thing I can add is, and this is from personal experience with my rig, just forget about the caster angle altogether. Align for camber and toe-in. Whatever caster angle results is not only likely to not matter(as in it won't likely cause any issues when adjusted to whatever angle(s), be they uneven side to side or not), it's also not very easy to determine in your driveway. In short, it's pretty irrelevant. Meaning, do I think the uneven caster is actually the problem? No, IMO, it most likely isn't. But I've read it "can" be, in theory. But the one thing that you will notice is that with more total caster angle(both sides summed up) steering effort increases. Whether or not you want to consider steering effort increase/decrease as an "issue" is debatable(it's more of a personal preference than an actual issue in my book).

sechott

I understand most of what you say, and makes me believe stronger that an error was made. I go to get an alignment my truck steered straight and my steering wheel was even. I just drove about 20 miles and my steering wheel is now little to left, when I straighten it up it pulls to the right. If I let it drive itself it pulls to the left. I definitely want the shop to take a second look.

I also looked at my bushings, no cracked edges and I can use a screwdriver and flex the rubber, I don't think they are bad. I think the mechanic didn't have the steering wheel straight while attaching the machine.

250000_yota

As a alignment tech, I have to say that what your tech is saying is false. If the proper angles can not be achieved, then something is obviously bent, or worne out, or a combination of the two. Was he able to get the camber within spec on the side with the high camber angle? From my experience, high caster angle while being able to achieve proper camber angles would most likely be a bent control arm. Take it to another alignment shop, and bring your printout of your previous alignment to have them figure it out.

And mudhippy, just to help you out, the way I always remember it is that caster inequalities will always pull to the side with the lowest value, or closest to 0*. Camber inequalities will always pull to the side with the highest value, or farthest from 0*. So while in the main issue of tire wear it can be unimportant, the corrective actions taken to correct a pull caused by caster indiffereces can cause odd tire wear issues.

Stu Pidasso

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abecedarian

No caster "cam"? Someone obviously doesn't understand what the adjusters do.

The lower a-arm cams affect both caster and camber: if you turn the front one out, and the rear one in correspondingly, camber will not be affected and you would be effectively moving the wheel towards the rear- which is caster. Obviously though, you would need to compensate with toe adjustment too.

If the desired caster and camber cannot be acheived by adjusting the lower a-arm bolts, the frame and/or a-arm mount points are bent.
But the alignment tech should be smart enough to tell you that.

Luvmeye22re

Don't get me started on this. Try a new shop. I took my 4runner to a shop that came with a good following shortly after purchasing it. I knew it had a few problems but I didn't know the half of it. I took it for an alignment expecting horrible news as far as a parts list. The tech walked out and the guy said I'd be done in 20 minutes...

I figured it needed ball joints just from what I've read here and how horribly it wandered and drove. I am very new to working on IFS although I've had a number of IFS trucks.

They aligned it, took my money, told me camber couldn't be adjusted due to parts being seized, said they adjusted toe to compensate etc. etc. (I have yet to find a seized bolt or a spot of rust under this thing really).

Well a few weeks ago or so I was changing my oil. I took a look around.

Something was obviously not right. The ball joint on my drivers side seemed to have a 1/4" gap between the plate and the knuckle! Somebody bought a cheap cheap ball joint that didn't fit correctly. The top of the joint didn't fit into the tapered hole on the knuckle causing a huge gap. They installed it and tightened the bolts down any ways.

Well after a weekend of hell and a cheap master pro ball joint that didn't fit which got replaced with a MOOG, I got a new ball joint in (lower).

I took it to a shop that a family friend owns and they are kind of pressing me to do my own work on my vehicle because they know I'm broke and capable with a good nudge and a pat on the back...

Her head tech showed me what was loose and how to check it. Turns out, it needed a passenger side lower BJ, a pitman arm, and an idler arm. He literally showed me how loose they were. He said the tie rod ends weren't perfect but could probably ride it out through winter easy.

How did the alignment shop not catch this is beyond me. They do it every day for a job but a guy who has never really worked on IFS like me could tell there was a problem just by looking at it, no wiggling, no jacking the truck up, nothing.

Alignment shops suck unless you find a good one. My suggestion is to find a shop that isn't going to try to take you for your money on an alignment or put no effort towards it and still take your money. A GOOD shop will do an alignment correctly hoping you will be safe and be a return business. In fact from what I've seen, getting a good alignment isn't done at an alignment shop at all. It is done at a FULL SERVICE auto shop that has an alignment rack. This is pocket change to a shop that rebuilds motors and does head gaskets and transmissions all day.....

This is opinion. I know people do it in their driveways, have success with Firestone, etc. BUT. There are some terrible shops out there. Firestone quoted me over $400 to do my drivers side lower ball joint. After having the tools and knowing what part will fit from O'Reilly.... I know that when I do the passengers side on thursday it will be a one hour job including hang out time looking at the truck like I know what I'm doing.

That said, find a shop that is HIGHLY sought after in your area, and create a relationship.

Rant over. No offense to anyone that works in an alignment shop but there are way too many of them out there that aren't providing a good service.

MudHippy

Actually, I know EXACTLY what they do. I do my own wheel alignments, and I FULLY understand how to align these vehicles correctly. I'm not going to say that I gave the best description of it there. But, regardless, you COMPLETELY misunderstood what I meant by that. Basically, there's no cam that is specifically for adjusting JUST caster. BOTH cams are for adjusting caster, as well as adjusting camber.
That's precisely what I meant. But you should have added that the reverse is also true(as in "or vice versa"). Because you can adjust the caster angle in either direction, not just by moving the wheel towards the rear(and/or towards negative caster angle). In short, moving the wheel towards the front(towards positive caster angle) or the rear(towards negative caster angle) is how caster angle is adjusted. Plain and simple.

Funny how the alignment technician(250000 yota) didn't find any fault with my statements in those regards. Probably because there isn't any to be found.

What's not been mentioned as far as front wheel alignment on these vehicles is concerned is how torsion bar adjustment affects camber angle. Lifting the vehicle with the torsion bars causes the camber angle to move towards negative, and vice versa(lowering the vehicle with the torsion bars moves the camber angle towards positive). Similarly, suspension up-travel(compression) moves camber angle towards positive. While suspension down-travel(extension) moves camber angle towards negative.

sechott

I hope they get out right they are going to redo the alignment tomorrow. Thanks for all the information on this.

BMcEL

A lot of shops have a hard time aligning these trucks for whatever reason. If you paid for it, keep going back until they get it right (or do it yourself as mentioned).

Oh, and can we lock Abe & Mud in a room together for a while?

MudHippy

The proverbial "2 pit bulls tied to the same tree".

Truthfully, I think we're both trying to not attack the other as best we can. Out of mutual respect for each other's prowess. And, though slow as it may be, we seem to be making some progress in that direction. That's as I see it anyway.

abecedarian

Funny how that alignment technician corrected you too. Or did you miss this:
You were saying?



And what, pray do tell, does this have to do with the OP?

abecedarian

I'd argue there is no mud, since we're online ... that is unless Al Gore managed to find a way to physically pave the "Information Superhighway" he helped develop.... I digress.

MH would argue mud has water, soil, silt and clay mixed in, and provide tech manuals and MSDS to prove it, even if it meant claiming bentonite and such used to fill trenches made a difference in how fast signals flowed.

Oh, wait... you were saying?

abecedarian

I would agree, mostly. In likely the same amount of restraint your applied.
... overall ....

MudHippy

I said "in those regards". Meaning with respect to the accuracy of my description of how the adjustments to caster angle are achieved. And not in regards to what his clarifications were meant to address. Which were actually in much less of a corrective nature, and much more of an addendum. As they didn't necessarily disagree with everything I'd stated, but rather supplemented to the information provided in those statements.

You know what? Just forget it. I'm really not trying to argue with you about it. You can be right, I can be wrong. That's o.k. with me.
It might not have anything to do with his situation. But I feel the information is relevant enough to the thread in general. As it provides further insight on what affects front wheel alignment.

On a personal note, I would like to apologize to you. I'm sorry, truly I am. At this point I'm not even sure where it was that we got off on such the wrong foot. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the root cause of this conflict between us was due to something I said that offended you deeply. And I deeply regret that, should that be the case. In other words, if it was I who drew first blood, I accept responsibility for doing so. With little more I can do at this point to resolve things other than to try and make amends for it. Which may or may not be possible, but the olive branch I shall extend to you no less.

In so doing, I promise to make a more concerted effort to not ruffle your feathers in the future. I will admit that I haven't tried as hard as I possibly can to avoid such. And whatever other concessions I can make would be taken into consideration too, should I know what they were. Maybe you could inform me here and now of what they might be so that I'll be made aware of your requests for them.

Anyhow, I bet NONE of you ever thought you'd hear words like these come out of my mouth. Frankly, neither did I. But if they happen to fall on deaf ears, that's just fine by me. I'll atleast have some sense of satisfaction for having said them in the first place. Honestly though, I don't expect things to change significantly(if at all). We all have roles to fill here. Part of the role I play often requires stringent rebuttal. Which I personally have no problems with. I'd like to ask you all to be a little more aware to not shoot the messenger if you would, please. However, as full of holes as I already am from such pot shots, it hardly makes any difference at this point. So feel free to fire away! For all I care...

To all reading this, I'm sorry to have taken so much of your time. I just don't do PMs unfortunately. I also wanted as many of you as can be allowed to hear me out on this. And thanks for doing so.

snobdds

Does this mean no more splitting of hair debates. I for one, like them. I say carry on...

I would pick up the tab, to hear both of you going rounds on the toyota knowledge, over beers anytime.

MudHippy

Well, like I said, I don't expect things to change much(or at all). I just wanted to try something new for a change. And see how well it flies, so to speak. It's all good with me if it immediately nose-dives, then erupts in a ball of flames as it strikes the earth. So be it. Maybe I'll try again some other day. Maybe I won't.

Quote of the day: "It's not good to be hated. But it is good to be hated by the right people." I'd give due credit to who it was that said that. It's just not coming to me right now. I'll edit it in later if I can figure it out.

sechott

I had the tech retry making it better. I watched him and could see he made quite an effort. The manager looked over the suspension and said nothing looks bent. So maybe it is worn bushings or cam bolts. At least it is noticeably better than before. I know more about it than before thanks to all your input here.now I have replace the cv boot I ripped it running over a twig yesterday. Never ending problems