Cross caster

[Socalboarder]

So I have taken my PW a couple times to get an alignment and each time it gets better, but still pulls to the right. The other day, while taking pictures of my driveshaft, I decided to look at my lower control arm cam bolts. This is what I saw
Driver side:

Passenger side:

1.Is this cross caster? The axle is closer to the control arm on the driver side than it is on the passenger side.

2. Why is cross caster bad?

3. What do the marks on the upside down U that goes around the cam bolt represent?

4. How do I adjust toe and caster? Bear in mind that I have basic tools, no special alignment tools. Pretty sure these bots adjust caster. Could some one show a picture of where/how toe is adjusted?

5. I've read the Thuren alignment setting, so anyone want to chime in on theses setting, i.e. do they work?

[nts007]

That looks reall off. You have almost max positive caster on the passenger and almost max negative on the driver. Unless they were trying to fix a real bad dog track matching the rear axle someone really dropped the ball. Bit sides should be positive and almost identical. Unless...that is what they had to do to match caster on both sides....being your axle is twisted from factory. Those only adjust caster either way. Toe is adjusted on the draglink with a pipe wrench on the double thread sleeve with the two locking clamps. Cross caster that bad should give you really shitty steering feel

[DamageWagon]

Before I answer your questions, what tires are you running? Certain tires like the Toyo MT are engineered to pull to the right so that a steering damper can counteract the pull. If you have tires with no pull there is a chance a steering damper will give you a leftward pull. This is my understanding.

There is a thread on this on DTX.

1: cross caster is used to improve an alignment. It is a thing, they didn't screw up. It's intentional. Whether or not it is why you are unhappy is unknown.

2: not necessarily bad.

3: those marks are the o'clock marks used for generally setting the caster bolt. Those marks and the hole in the bolt are useless. An alignment shop will do much better. Those marks tend to be way off.

4: caster by a shop is preferred. Toe in is adjusted with a tape measurer and the adjustment sleeve on your tie rod.

5: Thurens numbers are probably better than almost any alignment shop. Remember though they are a guideline and your truck may need some tweaking after using his specs to start.

Sent from my safe space

[nts007]

Ask them to give you the alignment printout!

[nts007]

Before I answer your questions, what tires are you running? Certain tires like the Toyo MT are engineered to pull to the right so that a steering damper can counteract the pull. If you have tires with no pull there is a chance a steering damper will give you a leftward pull. This is my understanding.

There is a thread on this on DTX.

1: cross caster is used to improve an alignment. It is a thing, they didn't screw up. It's intentional. Whether or not it is why you are unhappy is unknown.

2: not necessarily bad.

3: those marks are the o'clock marks used for generally setting the caster bolt. Those marks and the hole in the bolt are useless. An alignment shop will do much better. Those marks tend to be way off.

4: caster by a shop is preferred. Toe in is adjusted with a tape measurer and the adjustment sleeve on your tie rod.


Sent from my safe space

Mild cross caster yes but not positive 8° on one side and -8° on the other. That's twisting the axle 16°..... Not right man. I could see say 3° driver and 5° passenger

[DamageWagon]

I didn't know there was that much adjustment in the caster bolts. I don't think that is right. 16 degrees of cross caster and you could see knuckles pointing the opposite way. I don't think you could twist the axle like that without just crushing your control arm bushings.


Sent from my safe space

[nts007]

After I installed my long arms I managed to be out only a little bit. 3° out of spec. I still had 1.5° positive. But I could see the pinion didn't look right. I had a shop put it on the machine and they let me do the alignment myself and I got it to 4.6° and 4.8°. And the pinion looks right. You can see 3°

If I remember correctly the appx max adjustment is around 6.5° on stock so 8 is a small exaggeration but you get what I mean. 12° cross caster is still really bad and the stock control arms can handle that twist.

[RustyPW]

What is your alignment specs from the shop?

[Colibri]

The alignment tech who did that is a fuck-wit who's used to working on mall crawlers. That was an attempt at giving you cross caster to account for road crown and/or tire pull. A solid axle is welded together, the knuckles can not move independently of each other like an ifs truck, so to get his laser alignment machine to read cross caster like he thought it should, he had to crank them opposite each other like that. I would guess you're sitting at around 3.5* of caster as read by the alignment rack and it's driving like shit because the entire suspension is preloaded to one side and the front axle is cocked diagonally. Loosen the caster bolts and rotate them both straight up and it will probably drive better until you can get it aligned correctly. You want 4.8-5* caster and both sides to be pretty damn close to each other. Use a pressurized steering stabilizer to correct tire pull if you have it. The two sides should be within .2 of each other or so. Anything past that and you're getting right back to where you started. I got an alignment done a while back and the asshat did the same shit, when I got the truck back it was an inch and a half lower on the passenger side rear. When I unloaded the caster bolts the whole truck leveled out. It was putting the entire suspension under constant bind and load.

[Socalboarder]

So I never said I was unhappy with the settings. I just want to make sure everything is up to par. The tires I'm running are General Grabber X3s, 37x12.5r17, and have less than 200 miles on them. Being that they are new, I want to get the front end aligned correctly. Current pressure on the tires are 40 up front and 35 rear.

I appreciate all the input guys.

[nts007]

Tires will compensate somewhat for the bad alignment because of soft tall sidewalls but your gonna get real bad tire wear and it's plain wrong. Unless your axle is fubarred