I wish I had gotten to this thread sooner.

Caster, isn't a very big deal. Cross caster is more important meaning you don't want one spindle leaning forward and the other rearwards. Aligning the vehicle so that both spindles lean rearwards with proper camber will result in a nicely aligned truck and long tire life.

An alignment shop that deals with 4X4's knows this. Those that deal with unmodified vehicles simply see green or red numbers and assume all is well or not. They do not typically understand how the suspension works. For example, take a prerunner with its front end jacked up in the air. That truck's caster is way out of spec but the drive quality is fine as long as as cross caster is taken into consideration.

This is something I investigated when I was developing the spacers and put many many miles on my truck on an alignment I did myself with no irregular tire wear.

If anyone is interested, I can show you (describe) a very easy way to align your truck yourself. It will save you lots of money and you will do a much better job than the shop will because the spec has a wide window and they stop when they just get into that window. You can easily dial it in better.

As for the idler arms bending it is true, they see more vertical force with cranked t-bars or ball joint spacers. The only options are not to lift such that you increase the clearance under the diff (use a bracket style lift which has a host of other issues) or install a brace. With the brace, the idler arm is good to go.

Frank

 

Elripster, I would definately like to know how to do my own alignment! Please share, I too have the bj spacers and need to get an alignment pronto (a summer of hard wheeling did a number on my original alignment), it would be nice to be able to do it myself.

 

Ok guys, time to save a boat load of cash. Aligning our trucks is a piece of cake.

After installing ball joint spacers while the truck is still on jack stands, take the forward facing alignment cams and turn them until the cam is pointing upwards.

Now, adjust the rear facing cam bolts until the cam is pointing all the way outwards. Your cross caster is in and your camber is very close.

Make sure the steering wheel is centered and adjust each tie rod until the wheels visually appear to be aligned to the rear wheels. You will be shocked at how close you will get just eyeballing it.

Put the truck on the ground and roll it back and forth to relax the suspension.

Put something square next to a front wheel. It can be a real right angle square or anything that is, well, square and large enough to be placed next the tire and touch the upper/lower side walls.

If the tires is leaning outwards, adjust the front facing cam (outwards) until it is not. Adjust it the opposite way if it is leaning inwards. Do this for both sides and roll the truck back and forth. If your tires are vertical against the square, you have nailed the camber dead on. The spec window of error is like 1.5 degrees and you can REALLY see the off camber when it is in spec but at the edge of the range. (I got into it with an alignment tech who swore even though the tire was visible leaning the number on the alignment machine was green so it was therefore Ok. That was the day I realized I could actually do this better by sight)

Tie or tape a string to the front facing part of the front tire. (you are going to hold up against the sides of the front and rear wheels) Walk to the rear wheels and bring the string in until it touches the rear outter part of the front tire. Measure the distance between the forward outter and rearward outter faces of the rear tire. You want to be either dead even (tires are aligned with the rear) or maybe 1/8" difference where the fronts are slightly toed in. At 1/8" resolution, you are setting the toe to a .1 degree resolution. The spec window is, if memory serves, .75 degree but Toyota actually specifies the front tires to be aligned to the rear with no toe-in.

You are now done, enjoy your free alignment skills for the rest of your life.

Frank

 

Why don't alignment shops teach thier techs about what 4x4's need?

That's some good info. If we had mods, they could make it a sticky.

 

Thats exactly how I have been aligning my truck for the past year, and it has been the best alignment that has been done to it in 9 years. The first time took me a couple hours to get everything worked out but now takes me about 15 min to check it and an hour to align it. Doing it myself I have probably save myself 2-300 bucks in alignments in the past year. For some reason I'm rough on the IFS when the tires leave the pavement

 

Can you adjust the adjuster cams with the truck on the ground, or do you need to jack it up first? I need an alignment so I may as well give it a try, but with my luck I'll end up breaking something

 

I have had exactly the same exerience. My own alignment was the best the truck ever had as well. Somewhere I have the actual specs and I compared them to my own measurements when I did the first alignment myself. I calculated the trig and sure enough I had no problem getting way within the specified window of adjustment.

I think most shops see stock vehicles all day long. Once and a while you will pull your truck into a good shop but even then, with the frequency we knock out our aligments, being able to do it yourself is nice.

Typically also, you don't have to do as much work to tweak it after wheeling as you do when you first install a lift kit. Whether it's a bracket style or spacer lift, that first alignment takes longer than the minor tweaks required after hard wheeling.

Frank

 

You can adjust the cams on the ground. Those are hardened M10's or something and are extremely strong. The only thing you might break is a wrench if you are using a 3/8" drive. I use the .5" breaker bar because it makes it much easier to turn. You could do it with a combo wrench hooked onto another unless you very strong, just depends on your arms.

Frank

 

Is it difficult to turn the cams? They have that hole in them. I thought it might require a special tool that utilizes that hole to turn them.

 

Nah, it's easy. They are a typical hex head. That hole is off center so it can shift the arms in and out. Other than being a large bolt size they are no different to turn than any other.

Fank

 

If you have to adjust your front facing cam to fix your camber, do you have to readjust your cross caster? I need an alignment and I might as well try this myself. Actually my avatar pic shows how bad my passenger side camber is off.

 

I have the above mentioned alignment procedure on the web page below:
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ForSale/...GetAnAlignment

 

Hah.... oh I guess I shouldn't laugh at that

 

As long as both of your front cams are close to mirrored to each other you are fine. Camber is much more important than caster. I argued with an alignment tech over the caster issue when he set one of the spindles on my truck leaning almost all the way forwards and the other rearwards. His boss said they never adjust caster on a modified vehicle. It took that much of a difference to feel it when driving but the truck was not "right". I realigned it with the spindles leaning rearwards and the problem was solved.

I would strongly suggest aligning your truck yourself. If your tires are vertical, and aligned to the rear, you are good to go. There's no magic to it. A test drive will tell you how you did.

I'm sure you already know this but I'll say it for the sake of anyone who might not be thinking of it, you might want to rotate your tires when doing this. Wearing out one side of a tire will make that tire try to pull to that side indedendent of alignment.

Frank

 

Frank thanks! I didn't even think about the tires affecting the pull. I will definately try this, hopefully today.

 

You guys need to find better alignment shops. A trained eyeball might get the alignment close but you can't achive what a machine with a compentent aligner will do.

Camber and toe are the biggest wear angles, caster will usally not wear but will create a pull. Caster is important if you want your truck to return to center out of a corner. Camber will pull if the difference is greater then a degree.

 

I wish I could find a better alignment shop, I just refuse to keep paying approx 50 bucks each time till I find one. I have tried 5 or 6 local shops since I have had my truck and each time the truck did not drive like it had been aligned. Several of those I returned after driving less than 5 miles and complained about it, and was told either I knocked it out of alignment or that "those Toyota's just dont hold an alignment" WTF???

Doing the driveway alignment I am using more than a trained eyeball, I am using tools that give me a reference to the tires camber and toe in. I have a 4ft square that I use to set the camber then align the front tires to track in the same plane as the rear. My truck doesn't pull in either direction, the wheel returns to center and my tires have quit showing strange wear patters (rock rash doesnt count).

If you have a good shop that has a good machine with a competent operator, congrats. I just quit throwing money to shops that do not train their alignment tech.. The last time I had to give the guy clues how to use the machine, and I have never used one before.

 

Cross caster being out will create pull. Again, if the spindles lean rearwards, you are good, the truck will return to center.

You CAN do a much better alignment than the guy with the computer will. He is paid to get the numbers to turn green, that spec window is large. He is not paid to get it dead on and honestly, this is because Toyota didn't say the truck needed to be dead on.

I can re-calc the trig if you like but the string method makes it easy to get within .1 degree if memory serves which I think is 7X tighter than the spec. You can get closer if you want.

Using the square to set camber is excellent. If the tire is square to the ground, you are simply dead on.

I can't stress enough, we are not driving Lamborghinis at 180MPH (althought his method works there too), these are 4X4s where the alignment changes when you through something in the back. The tolerances as far as alignment is concerned are very large compared to even a Civic.

If it makes anyone feel better, I learned the string/square method from an individual who restors high end sports cars to racing condition.

Frank

 

Touche, I know you think your alignment is good, and most Alignment techs don't know there head from there butt. I'll even say you are in specs, but some can achive what you can't.

Caster is the relationship between the upper and lower ball joint, greater then a degree of difference (cross caster) will create a pull. Less then a total of 1 degree caster can cause return to center issues and in extream cases death wobble. Camber should be at 2 degrees. (hint: If you can't get caster in spec, the rear of your truck is too high, as you lower the rear you caster changes)

Toyota 4runners like a little positive camber for the best tire wear, usally around a half of a degree. Whent they are closere to zero tire feathering occurs, similar to toe feathering or tire scrubbing.

Toe should be easy enough to set without a machine, centering the steering wheel will be way more difficult. I have found that 2mm to 3mm of toe in gives good straight line tracking but does not create a tire feathering.

Do you use turn plates when you make all you changes? I'm sure everyone can't. If you don't the second you drive your vehicle the alignment changes. The friction from your tires does not allow you to "see" everything that is happening. If you have turn plates then a good alignment could be had with a bubble gauge and toe strings. A contractors square could be used for camber if you account for tire bulge in your calculations.

You can't do a better alignment then somone who cares what they are doing, if you think your local midas guy will give you your moneys worth then go for it. There are local shops here (bear frame and axle is a good one, Burt toyota) That will give you your alignment and set it right, the cost might be over a 100 dollars, but it is worth it.

To summarize, My 4runners alignment sucks. I have negative .7 degrees camber for high speed cornering and shock clearance, my caster is at 2.5 degrees with a correction for road crown. I have 3mm of toe in for straight line tracking and my steering wheel is straight and it doesn't pull. I could not have been anywhere as accurate if I didn't set it up on the machine.

I also think some alignment guys don't know anything also.

 

mudbutt, give this method a try. You'll see.

Now to address a few things.

I have never heard of an IFS rig with deathwobble. I don't think you can adjust the suspension out of spec far enough to get it, or you would have to excessively toe out the tires combined with massive forward caster. I have had my caster at opposite limits and it didn't do that. Heck, I have had my alignment all over the place at one time or another (trail welded broken lift brackets, bent crossmembers, general shifting of components, oh the trailmaster days....) and never had a wobble, just a pull or rapid tire wear.

Our trucks have about .5 degree of positive camber because it promotes understeer, not because it helps tire wear. It hurts tire wear. On IRS cars, it is common to camber in the rear wheels which have less weight, don't drive the vehicle, and therefore wear slower while keeping the front wheels vertical to lessen wear on the more heavily loaded front wheels. Understeer is a safer condition than oversteer for the average driver. Clearly we cannot adjust camber on a solid rear axle so we camber out the front.

Toe is .04" to .08" of an inch. That is nearly dead on aligned to the rear wheels. The string method can nail that easily because you are using such a long radius (lengh of vehicle's wheel base) and therefore have excellent resolution. Realize you actually change those values just putting gas in the truck so take them with a grain of salt.

You don't need side sliding plates, you need to roll the truck back and forth as I have said. That relaxes the suspension on the surfaces the truck actually drives. That's as real world as it gets.

You CAN do as good an alignment as someone who cares if you are someone who cares. And, you save a lot of money! If you disagree, try this method and have your truck measured at a shop. Or, measure it with this method and compare with what the shop did. If that doesn't convince you I suppose not much will. Otherwise, once the truck is aligned beyond the point of human perception, well, I dunno what to say other than it's good to go.


You are absolutely correct about many alignment techs being clueless. Most of them are. It takes some skill and aptitude to understand the suspension's adjustment capabilites and how it affects drive quality. Often people with that much brains move into better paying positions.

Anyway, getting back to the original issues of IFS and its tendency to "realign" itself during 4wheeling, this method works excellently and saves us a lot of money. If you wish to make your alignment shop wealthy, that is entirely up to you. At least now, you have a viable choice which is all I want us to have.

Frank