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camber, castor, tracking for the tightar$ed
CAMBER-CASTOR-TOE-IN ALIGNMENT (DIY)
Fitting 2” ball joint spacers pushed the camber and toe-in out of alignment so this is what I did to adjust it as best I could myself; I found the link below on Yotatec which was very helpful,
http://www.yotatech.com/f128/drivewa...ite-up-163666/
Mostly followed the “how to” in this link, he even added some video’s of how the cam bolts work,
With my garage being a bit restricted in height I wasn’t able to jack it up enough to get the wheels clear of the deck so made the wooden efforts in the pic, with it jacked on the axle and wheels off this allowed me to free up the cam bolts and get the control arms moving,
First I disconnected the track rod outers so the hubs were free moving, then wound the control arms out board as far as they would go, dropped weight of the truck down on to two jacks under the lower ball joints and checked with a level on the flat wood for vertical, bubble actually showed dead centre on the level, however when I refitted the wheels and let the jacks down a level across the rim edges showed about 1” negative camber, so I jack up on the axle and also under the BJ’s and slid two slippery plates under each tyre, these allow the tyres to settle without the friction affecting the setting checks, while it was up I brought in the forward cam bolts in bringing the control arm in at the front equally on both sides, let the jacks down and checked again, doing this a couple of time I got the camber just on the negative side (by the bubble) and pinched up the front cam bolt nuts, then brought the rear cam bolts back in a quarter turn, for the rough castor setting,
With all cam nuts retightened I run a string around the rear tyres and just visually checked the front wheels were about right! (pointing ahead) as I was fitting new outer track rod ends I screwed the new ones on (after cleaning and greasing the inner rod threads and the adjuster sleeves) to each end and adjusted both ends so they dropped into the steering arms at each side, once in and the castle nuts fitted with new split pins I then taped two 2 mtr lengths of prepped 2X1” battens (made sure these were nice and straight, no warps/kinks) as you see in the pic, this allowed me to measure across back and front to align the front wheels, after some adjusting on the sleeves I got a measurement of 78 5/8” front and back on the timber,
While this got the front wheels nice and aligned its not aligned quite right with the back axle so it’s slightly “crabbing” but not enough to notice either driving or visually, it’s just the steering wheel is slightly askew, however as my main concern was the camber and after some driving it feels a million times better than before I started, the tyres “look” more upright and the ride seems fine, castor must be ok as the steering wheel returns by itself after cornering,
I will prob reset the tracking adhering more to Matt’s write-up or get that done at the shop, anyplace can do the tracking but try finding a shop that will do the camber (round here anyway) and then you aint sure they did it properly,
If I’d paid money and it came back driving like it does I’d have said they did a good job and have been happy, this would have been pi$$ easy if the garage was higher,
ian
Me new buckshott mudders!!!!!
(couldn't afford BFG's)
Fitting 2” ball joint spacers pushed the camber and toe-in out of alignment so this is what I did to adjust it as best I could myself; I found the link below on Yotatec which was very helpful,
http://www.yotatech.com/f128/drivewa...ite-up-163666/
Mostly followed the “how to” in this link, he even added some video’s of how the cam bolts work,
With my garage being a bit restricted in height I wasn’t able to jack it up enough to get the wheels clear of the deck so made the wooden efforts in the pic, with it jacked on the axle and wheels off this allowed me to free up the cam bolts and get the control arms moving,
First I disconnected the track rod outers so the hubs were free moving, then wound the control arms out board as far as they would go, dropped weight of the truck down on to two jacks under the lower ball joints and checked with a level on the flat wood for vertical, bubble actually showed dead centre on the level, however when I refitted the wheels and let the jacks down a level across the rim edges showed about 1” negative camber, so I jack up on the axle and also under the BJ’s and slid two slippery plates under each tyre, these allow the tyres to settle without the friction affecting the setting checks, while it was up I brought in the forward cam bolts in bringing the control arm in at the front equally on both sides, let the jacks down and checked again, doing this a couple of time I got the camber just on the negative side (by the bubble) and pinched up the front cam bolt nuts, then brought the rear cam bolts back in a quarter turn, for the rough castor setting,
With all cam nuts retightened I run a string around the rear tyres and just visually checked the front wheels were about right! (pointing ahead) as I was fitting new outer track rod ends I screwed the new ones on (after cleaning and greasing the inner rod threads and the adjuster sleeves) to each end and adjusted both ends so they dropped into the steering arms at each side, once in and the castle nuts fitted with new split pins I then taped two 2 mtr lengths of prepped 2X1” battens (made sure these were nice and straight, no warps/kinks) as you see in the pic, this allowed me to measure across back and front to align the front wheels, after some adjusting on the sleeves I got a measurement of 78 5/8” front and back on the timber,
While this got the front wheels nice and aligned its not aligned quite right with the back axle so it’s slightly “crabbing” but not enough to notice either driving or visually, it’s just the steering wheel is slightly askew, however as my main concern was the camber and after some driving it feels a million times better than before I started, the tyres “look” more upright and the ride seems fine, castor must be ok as the steering wheel returns by itself after cornering,
I will prob reset the tracking adhering more to Matt’s write-up or get that done at the shop, anyplace can do the tracking but try finding a shop that will do the camber (round here anyway) and then you aint sure they did it properly,
If I’d paid money and it came back driving like it does I’d have said they did a good job and have been happy, this would have been pi$$ easy if the garage was higher,
ian
Me new buckshott mudders!!!!!
(couldn't afford BFG's)
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