Alignment??? (1 Viewer)

[Cruiser804]

I swear I saw a fairly comprehensive FEA post here by Landtank (Rick). I have found a couple tidbits here and there. Does anyone have the link to his post.

Or, tell me when you mark and measure the tires are you on the ground? I assume you would not lift the wheels off the ground to take the measurements, correct? Then jack up the truck rotate your makes to the rear, measure and adjust at the the tierod (rear of the axle).

Is that basically it?

 

[landtank]

What I do is lift the front axle with tires on off the ground and resting on jack stands.

I then measure and record the distance from the ground to the center of the hub.

I get some wide masking tape and place it on the forward facing surface of each front tire.

I then meaure up from the ground and make a horizontal line equal to that of the center hub distance measured earlier.

A second vertical line is added that is somewhere near the middle of the tire.

Now measure the distance between the tires at the vertical lines, record that measurement.

Rotate the tires so the horizontal lines are now at the rear with the distance from the ground being the same as before.

Measure between the vertical lines once again.

On stock tires you want the measurement when the tape is facing forward about a 1/16th of and inch closer than the rear an with 35" tires about 1/8".

That sets toe and as far as straightening the steering wheel, drive and adjust the drag link until it's straight.

 

[Grench]

We did an even cruder method when we did the TREs on my truck. We knew that I was going to take it into the mechanic and have it laser aligned anyway, so we just wanted to be close enough to get there. We didn't bother with getting the steering wheel straight under this scenario.

We took a yellow grease pencil and marked the center of the 2nd rib out on both tires on the front and back. Measure, set to 1/8" wider in the back, lock, drive out of the driveway, drive back into the driveway, repeat. Do once more to double check if any adjustments are made. Tires on the ground the whole time.

When I took it into the shop, they checked it, straightened the steering wheel and charged me $70. We had the toe in dead on.

IMHO YMMV I'm not a mechanic.

 

[Cruiser804]

Thanks Rick

How much effort should it take to turn the steering rod and the tie rod?

I put a pipe wrench on the steering rod (after I loosened the clamps completely) and I could not get the thing to budge.

 

[landtank]

up north here it usually take a torch and a s*** ton of pressure. Where are you located?

 

[medtro]

Another way of doing it, https://forum.ih8mud.com/79-95-toyo...nt-end-aline-ment-will-work-other-trucks.html

 

[Cruiser804]

Yeah, I gave up. Local shop is going to do it for 70.00.

I think I wrenched enough for a while after the lift, axle, and brakes. I figure I saved myself about 3-4k.