Haulin_in_Dixie

I am not an expert on front ends but know some of the info. Tow in is the main thing adjusted on an alignment, the Camber is not adjustable on a 4wd, and Caster is not critical just so there is positive Caster and they are equal.

My truck has always had a minor pull to the right and consequently wears the right tire more than the left. My ball joints are tight and the linkage is good, since replacing the left side tie rod end.

I downloaded an article from Pavement Sucks about alignment that made it simple and with that info I finally fixed the pull. The article says that if it pulls you add a little positive caster to the side that it pulls. I center punched a mark on the adjuster plate to mark where it was originally and gave it some more Caster on the right side. No more pull... great info on there.

torquefan

HID, on a solid front axle, you can't actually adjust caster on one side relative to the other, because the housing won't twist. What you did was effectively change the angle of the front axle so it's not square to the frame anymore. The most common cause of a steering pull on our 4x4 trucks is a thrust angle on the rear axle- it's not square to the frame. This is usually due to the slop in the locating pin between the lift block, leaf spring, and axle pad. Sorry for the bad news.

Dave

J BODY

You nailed that one Torquefan....and camber adjustment can be achieved with offset ball joints.

Cowhand

You guys are both right.....to a point. You can adjust the caster AND camber on a D60. This requires aftermarket alignment cams for the upper ball joints.

The alignment cam is adjusted to set camber at 0-.1 and right caster at .3. Then the cams on the lower control arm cams are used to swing the axle to 3.2*L, 3.5*R caster. This gives you .3 cross camber without putting a bind on the axle housing.

torquefan, you're dead on about the rear axle, mine is toe'd out on the right and in on the left. Haven't got around to fixing it because I'm having new springs and shock mounts made......

Haulin_in_Dixie

Lets see if I can make myself look dumb on this thing. That's usually easy for me. The entire front end is hung on rubber bushings so there is some small give. The axle is solid so that it cannot twist, but. If you add more caster to the right side the left side will respond with a little less caster. In other words, push the bottom of the right side out to the front, the top of the left side will settle back to a small degree. Is this what is called cross caster? We are not dealing with inches here, just small fractions of an inch.

The rear.... On a 4wd Dodge the rear axle is the poorest deal to pull weight with that I have ever seen. The stack up of riser blocks and springs leaves it wide open to minor movement. Then the springs are hung again on rubber. Not much way that this setup could hold any alignment with the main load being supported on slip pads of the helper springs. Then put over 300k on it all heavy loads. I am sure that the rear alignment is all wrong. Not a question here at all to me.

On the other hand, right now, if I can find a bandaid to let it go down the road straight for a while that would be good. I soon am changing the rear system to a better aligning setup, but have to work in the meantime.

I get outside right front tire wear in excess of the other tires. I was getting outside wear on both tires which I cured by getting the tierod in shape and getting towin near zero. All this said, with my heavy loads I am getting over 100k on the rear tires and 70k on the front tires.

The minor adjustment on the right front caster has lightened the pull to the right and therefore should lessen the wear on the outside edge. It is five minutes to put it back where it was if it does not respond right. It is marked at the original setting. There is no noticable dogtracking, these are minor adjustments. I don't have adjustable ball joints on the truck so cannot at this time adjust camber. In the future the truck will get all new bushings and balljoints and then it can be adjusted.

MARKY MARK

Haulin, I have the same problem. I have a slight pull to the right and the outside edge of my front passanger tire is wearing fast. Where can I find that article from Pavement Sucks? Or should I just go get my front end aligned?

Mark

Haulin_in_Dixie

Pavementsucks.com is the site and the article in in their faqs or that type of articles. It is titled tow in. It is a four wheeler off road site.

MARKY MARK

Thanks Haulin. I'll check it out.

RAM2940

Haulin in dixie,

I was under the truck the other day checking the cam bolts after reading that article. I noticed on mine that the arrow on the ring on the left side was just past the second line on the degree ring pointing forward, and on the right it was about 0 or 1 degree( straight up.). (If this makes any sense). Just wondering which way to rotate the bolt. Is towards the front positive caster and to the rear negative. And should the arrows be in about the same place on the degree ring on both sides.

I have a pull to the right also.

Thanks for any help.

RAM2940

When adjusting the eccentric, do you loosen the nut on the lower control arm and then adjust using the bolt. I noticed that i have arrows on the eccentrics that point to a degree ring around the eccentric ( which direction do you turn the eccentric - arrow towards front for positive caster?)

Thought i would bring back to the top to see if anyone could answer. Thanks for any help.

Haulin_in_Dixie

Looks like I opened a can of worms that I should not have. The front end is not something that a novice should get into. Seriously, if you have to ask how to move it and which direction, you probably should not be fooling with it.

At any rate, please, take a center punch and mark the original position so that you can put it back in the original position with no problem.

The information is all in the article previously mentioned and if that is not clear to you, I would recommend not moving it at all.

It would be better for you to take it to a shop that does four wheel alignments and have the rear checked out for proper alignment.

KATOOM

I know this isnt usually kosher but I'd like to revisit this nine year old thread.....if most of you are still members.

I love what HID brought forth years ago and changing and/or adding more caster helped my truck drive better than it had ever. Now I'm wanting to explore the alignment of the rear angle but I was hopping that someone could lend some experienced insight. Over the years I've tried messing with the front alignment so much I'm just done messing with it for sake of not being able to totally rid the trucks slight pull to the right. I've come to the conclusion that the real reason for the pull is the rear axle alignment so I'm wanting to see what I can change. As usual torquefan you're on to something good and I want to see what else you can add. For sake of experiment I was ready to set up a temporary cable truss just to see how affective it would be to lessen the torque from the right tire.