Old83@pincher

So the camber is out on the truck and the cams are seized, according to the tire shop experts. I'm thinking to not screw around with a bunch of rusty stuff and just cut the lower control arms off and replace them, it even looks as if this is cheaper than buying new bushings and fighting to press them in. Now as I'm glancing over the service manual (its a Haynes) it says I have to remove the steering rack to get the cams in and out...surely they're joking! Yah it looks pretty tight but cant you just wiggle them in? Next the truck always had that drug dealer Honda Civic negative camber look...why so much negative camber? The alignment print outs indicate its not that bad. Can it be changed to proper positive camber like first gens have? I seem to recall a post about this but cant find it...I think it referenced the trucks pulling to the right especially after lifting or with aggressive tires.

akwheeler

Is this a Kenworth? I realize you posted in the Taco/96-02 4runner forum, but you should still let us know what you are dealing with.
Is it lifted? Are all of the parts in the front end tight? No worn out bearings? Aftermarket rims that stick WAY out?
Pictures would help, I don't have a Taco to compare to and it's been a long time since I looked at one.
"cant you just wiggle them in?" not sure, service manuals generally don't lie.
"why so much negative camber?" also not sure, but alignment specifications for your vehicle have been engineered and refined over decades and are set up for specific reasons.
"Can it be changed to proper positive camber?" yes, anything is possible if done correctly. The only way you would get a pull is if the camber or caster is uneven from side to side, or the tire pressure is uneven, or a brake is dragging, or if you have a "radial pull" where the radials in one or both tires are not the same diameter so the outside or inside edge of the tire is taller..
A slight difference is often recommended to fight a drift caused by "road crown". Most paved roads are slightly crowned in the center to help water run off when it rains, this causes vehicles to drift towards the right ditch.
This also keeps you from drifting into oncoming traffic, so a very slight drift to the right is a good recommendation. A good alignment tech can dial that sucker in to drive great on good pavement, no guarantees on bad roads!
High caster and low camber on the left side will fight the road crown or cause a pull to the left if overdone.

Melrose 4r

Some(most?) tire shops won’t put in the extra effort to break loose frozen bolts anymore. Nor do they test drive vehicles after alignment.
i shamed my tire shop by bringing the truck back home and breaking the stuck bolt loose with a map gas torch and breaker bar. Then i cleaned the bolts, never-seized them and gave them back the gucci-smoothest 4runner camber bolts they had ever seen. Bottom line, break loose and lube the bolts yourself if you can. The tire shop “expert” is afraid of the liability of breaking a bolt.

Jomoka

I had to resort to cutting out the passenger side arm on mine. Those cam adjusters were *STUCK*. I tried all sorts of reasonable and somewhat unreasonable methods to get them loose or out, nothing worked. Including driving it around and bumping it over curbs with the bolts really loose - hoping that would loosen them. Plus some torch stuff. And hammers, small and large. So I finally sawzalled it out. Cuts on each side of each bushing. I had a new lower control arm with new bushings and new bolts and cams ready to go back together - put it together with plenty of anti-seize.

Then a couple of years later I needed to do the driver's side (bad LCA bushing) and was all prepared to do a similar battle... and it just came right apart. No fight, no fuss, maybe the left side has been spending less time in the salt belt than the right. (heh).

And yes - there's a long bolt that needs to come out where the steering rack is. and you need to remove the steering rack from its three mounts. You won't need to remove the tie rods, or steering column, or hydraulic hoses, just unbolt it from the crossmember and then wiggle it around as needed to get the bolts out. BTW - that center rack mount is a PITA.

Old83@pincher

Well it sounds like someone had a bad day in Alaska!

No I haven't tried anything yet, just assessing the level of PITA this is going to be. As far as the seized adjuster goes, this was about 2 years ago and they said the camber was close (- 1/2 degree too much) and confirmed by the printout.

I'm assuming this long bolt is the one which holds the two parts of the adjuster cams together?

The rack centre mount is a pain as I changed the bushings about 2 years ago.

And really when I get it checked again if its not that bad I'm not going to mess with it, cause it drives beautifully it just looks bad.

akwheeler

Not really, but I guess you missed the point, if you start your question with a description of your ride or create a signature line that tells what year/make/model truck you have it will save a lot of games playing 20 questions. And we still don't know.
Also, if you were to post some pictures of what you are fighting it could refresh someone's memory or allow someone who hasn't committed every suspension design to memory to visualize what you are talking about.
I did a lot of alignments in my past career, but I worked on so many suspension designs I can't remember every one.
In short, help us to help you.

Old83@pincher

I was going ignore this as sharper people kind of figured it but...

YEAR...2004, see model comment
MAKE...Toyota, who would of guessed that on the Yotatech Forum?
MODEL...Tacoma, who would have guessed that in the 95.5 to 2004 Tacoma sub forum? Recall the word TRUCK in the first post (Tacoma's and 4runners share the same front suspension)

Oh and it's green, chrome bumpers, 5 speed, 4WD, has a cap, trailer hitch, 1/2" pea dent in the drivers door and a scratch on the passenger fender 3" long when I backed up too close to a Cottonwood tree at XXXXXXXXX bridge on the XXXXXX river that had a piece of loose barbed wire on it! Hope that helps! Oh and air conditioning, that's always a biggy!

I didn't think we had to get as silly as the weekend parts kids questions when we just need a tail-light bulb.

Lets see what else...asked about the removing/replacing the alignment cams and hinted at the accuracy or lack of it, of the Haynes manual which it is known not be the best. Jomoka nicely answered that...thank you. I never said it pulled, only asked if someone could recall a post about someone who had alignment specs for the truck to correct it pulling to the right, but don't recall the specifics of it...I guess no one knows, but your comment of high caster/ low camber is in the ball park of that post...thank-you. As far as the negative camber...observant people will notice practically every late model car and light truck has exaggerated negative camber...the question was both general and specifically about Tacoma. I guess no one knows that even yourself who I'm assuming was/is some sort of alignment tech, guess that will be a mystery of life!

Can it be changed to positive camber like the first gens. FIRST GEN (definition)...the yotatech slang for 1979 to 1984 trucks, just so we don't get confused latter on and think we're talking about a Kenworth.( My personal favourite has always been the White Constructor. That humongous front bumper you got to love)

Rational...I've rotated the tires on my first gen about 5 or 6 times (its got no funky tire wear) and its oh lets see, about 38 years old and never had an alignment. Does it matter if its a 79 or an 82, no not really they're all the same except for the toe of the alignment, but the first gen Taco (more yotatech slang) you have to rotate just about every other oil change or you'll have no tread left on the inside edge. (I've owned two, the other was a 97 and was just as bad just in case that reverses the earths rotation and changes everything...more un-necessary information) So over the course of its 15 years its probably had 5 or 6 alignments and it still does this and the printouts verify the accuracy. (Cant find the print outs, likely got lost or thrown out in the move, I can see how that changes everything) So nothing is left to chance the logic works about like this...Positive camber seems not to destroy your tires, negative seems to.

I don't know how a picture will be the magic bullet of help, it will just show the front of a first gen Tacoma with negative camber which a half dozen tire/alignment shops says is right including the dealership.

So in the end I got most of my questions answered to the best of the ability of those who knew about first gen Tacomas. Does anymore of the information (some of it condescending) I put here help...not likely. If I need to state the obvious and/or the (logical) un-necessary perhaps the information of the reply should be questioned.

Oh yes, I did not miss the point at all.

Done.

Sorry and thank-you.

akwheeler

you don't need to get snotty, people post in the wrong forum all the time and we are not psychic.
a picture OF YOUR CAM BOLTS might help someone answer ONE of your questions, but if you looked you would probably answer your OWN question.
Don't worry about getting any help from me, you seem to have all the answers.

old87yota

No, you still missed the point, as your sarcastic post pointed out that we should basically be mind readers and/or make time wasting assumptions.

As Akwheeler pointed out, people post in the wrong sub-forum section all the time. In fact, there have been a few threads where I have helped others where they did not tell us what they were working on, and it turned out they posted in the wrong forum, which lead to a bunch of confusion as the Thread Starter and the people trying to help were thinking they were talking about the same vehicle but were really talking about different vehicles.

It is common forum courtesy to tell us what you are working on right up front, as it just saves everyone from guessing what vehicle you have or if you have posted in the correct sub-forum.