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No, your first stop is to a competent alignment shop. If you look at the printout, your alignment tech moved your front right caster from just under the lower end of spec to horribly out of spec. They actually made caster worse. That means he actually moved the lower ball joint backwards in the wheel well (by rotating the lower control arm the wrong way). It should be moved forward. He may have done this to keep the camber in spec, but not likely. The driver side lower control arm needs to be moved forward as well, too. I know your options are limited, but you may want to find some time to chat with some repair shops that have their own alignment machines, etc. If you keep your alignment as is, and add an aftermarket UCA, you are going to push that tire into the rear plastic of the fender well and rub on the pinch weld, because the aftermarket UCA will move your upper ball joint backwards as well in an attempt to fix caster.
ahhh ok, thanks for the info
For an easy mental picture of caster, think of a front bicycle fork, wheel and the head tube, the tube attached to the frame that the fork goes through.
). A friend of mine went to the hospital on his V-Max motorcycle, which was a very powerful bike in it's day. As it turned out he had to spend the night and didn't want to leave the bike in the parking lot so knowing that I rode high performance bikes, he asked me to come by and ride his bike home, which I did. I got on that bike and when I rolled the throttle all the way back to get on the freeway, it was so powerful, my fingers almost started loosing grip (love it!). But (being used to my super sports) when I tried to change lanes, because the V-Max are more a cruiser style with a relaxed angle fork (and heavier), I felt like I had to put my weight into it just to get it to change lanes compared to my super sport bikes.
Yeah, I’m really confused too. I can’t understand it. They are telling me the lower cam bolts are maxed out to the “ears” and can’t be adjusted any further to allow more caster. This is the same response from 3 different shops, 2 being Toyota dealers. I will snap some pics in the morning for sure. I just purchased the SPC UCA’s and am currently scheduled to have them installed Monday. According to the tech today, he has no doubt he can then dial things in properly. Ugh, so frustrating.
Welded on reinforcements should not affect adjustment range as compared to OEM. Replacement upper arms will increase caster regardless. Just noting that my setup might not look quite like the OP's.
Looking at the cup half full, at least you can afford to get the parts, have them installed in a short time period and move forward enjoying your ride. In a short while you'll forget all about this little hiccup until in the future you post about it here for someone going through the same thing.
Good point, and I agree. I had planned on getting SPC's down the road once I installed a more robust lift after the other mods are done over time. However, it appears that anyone with close to a 2" lift or more will definitely need UCA's to dial in the caster correctly. I was hoping to get close with stock UCA's which would last until the upgraded lift was installed, but that does not look like an option now. So, let's install the SPC's and dial it in and then I am all set. Of course, hindsight being 20/20, I should have installed the SPC's from day one and we wouldn't be having this conversation LOL.
Life is full of, "would'a, should'a, could'a's".
