The 97 I bought used exhibits a bit of wander my 93 never has since new. Around here, the freeways have faint trenches where the tires wear from winter studs and the truck kinda feels like it grabs them slightly. It's very, very, very slight but I feel it once a month or so whereas the 93 never does it. I thought it would go away when I repacked the front axle, wheel bearings and knuckle bearings this summer but it only diminished by say 50%.
The truck 'feels' like it is a toe out issue.
So, one of the dealerships here got a fancy big dollar alignment machine and one of my buddies who works there did the alignment for me on it. He found it was toed out 0.10 and didn't think it would make a difference to change it. I disagreed, so he went about adjusting it. He wanted to put it at 0.0 and I asked him to give it a slight toe in.
Directly from the dealership, I got on the freeway and noted a difference. I'd say the wander is down to only 10% of the original amount, so this change was a very large impact again. I was tempted to bring it back and have another half degree put in but I suspect the tires may have taken a slight wear pattern from the slight toe out, so I'll wait and see. I'll be putting the snow tires on in the morning, which have not been on it to have that issue, so they'll be a clean test. If I still feel it, I'll tweak it again.
So, these beasts appear fairly sensitive to front alignment adjustments, which makes sense due to the inordinate width of the factory rubber. Informationally, to make that 2 degree change was about a half rotation of the steering rod.
My final front toe in totals 0.15 and spec is from 0.0 to 0.30 so I'm right in the middle of the range. In my experience, a slight toe in will improve handling subtlely.
DougM
The truck 'feels' like it is a toe out issue.
So, one of the dealerships here got a fancy big dollar alignment machine and one of my buddies who works there did the alignment for me on it. He found it was toed out 0.10 and didn't think it would make a difference to change it. I disagreed, so he went about adjusting it. He wanted to put it at 0.0 and I asked him to give it a slight toe in.
Directly from the dealership, I got on the freeway and noted a difference. I'd say the wander is down to only 10% of the original amount, so this change was a very large impact again. I was tempted to bring it back and have another half degree put in but I suspect the tires may have taken a slight wear pattern from the slight toe out, so I'll wait and see. I'll be putting the snow tires on in the morning, which have not been on it to have that issue, so they'll be a clean test. If I still feel it, I'll tweak it again.
So, these beasts appear fairly sensitive to front alignment adjustments, which makes sense due to the inordinate width of the factory rubber. Informationally, to make that 2 degree change was about a half rotation of the steering rod.
My final front toe in totals 0.15 and spec is from 0.0 to 0.30 so I'm right in the middle of the range. In my experience, a slight toe in will improve handling subtlely.
DougM