The pictures are huge, I'm working on shrinking them......

So quite a while back I had my truck aligned at a shop. I pointed out my drivers side tire had positive camber, they pointed out it was in spec, I said it was obvious to the eye, they said the numbers are green not red so must be good..etc... this went back and forth, I left the shop with a truck that didn't really drive right but then I knock the alignment out all the time so what is "right". Further inspection revealed the cross caster was set such that each wheel was on opposing ends of the adjustment window. This makes for quicky steering.

Fastforward to a few months ago when our shop tech and myself aligned this car.


Since it's a one off there isn't really a spec. He used a method which has worked well for him on a lot of exotic sports car and race cars he's worked on in the past and present. This process worked great on the Engima which requires all 4 wheels to be aligned. It worked superbly on my truck which only requires the front wheels. In fact, this is be best alignment it has ever had.

Things to know. Toyota has the front wheels aligned square to the rears as opposed to specifying a toe in. I could be wrong but I've been told this many times by alignment shops. That's what I did here with outstanding results.

Toe in/out: Wheels pointing towards (in) or away (out) from one another.

Camber: Looking at the truck head on, positive camber is where the wheels lean outwards, negative is inwards.

Caster: This is the rake of the wheel spindles. It should be such that they lean back like the forks on a motorcycle. (If I'm wrong, chime in, but I'm pretty sure this is how it goes) Caster is a funny spec. What matters is the spindles rake back some and close to the same amount. Many trucks, all prerunners, etc... don't have a prayer of "in spec" caster. The shop just doesn't tell you this. It totally depends on how the truck sits and other things. Some trucks sit such that their caster is a slam dunk. Either way, trucks drive fine as long as the cross caster is close. To drive it home, you load up the back, the caster goes out. Does the truck steer poorly? Nope.

Prior to my home grown alignment, the driver's side caster was good, the passenger side was way wrong, leaning forward.(passenger tire closer to the firewall)

Here is the order of steps I followed.

1. Pull the truck straight into a flat surface, turn off the truck and pull the key so the steering wheel locks straight.

2. Check the camber with a right angle like this.



If it is not vertical, loosen the cams and adjust them inwards or outwards. NOTE: You want the rear bolts to point outwards and the fronts to be more inwards. This brings the caster into where it should be while increasing firewall clearance. You will likely have to roll the truck back and forth to allow the tires to relax as pushing out the rim will flex the sidewalls a bit making it hard to align to the square.

3. Tape a string to the front wheel and walk with it to the rear of the truck. Measure against the front and rear outter surfaces of the rear wheel. The string should be the same distance indicating the front wheel is are pointing the same direction as the rear. If it isn't, loosen the adjuster on the tie rod and tweak it until the front wheel is straight. You can use a small ruler and easily get to where the distance between the front of the rear wheel and back side surfaces within .125". (1/8) At that difference, the front wheel is toed in/out a whopping .25 of a degree. That's nuttin'. If you wanna be anal, you can get it spot on.





Repeat these steps periodically rolling the truck back and forth to releive tension on the tires if you have pushed the camber in or out.

Unless you have bent the daylights out of your front bracketry, the two front cam bolts should point inwards while the rears outwards roughly the same amount. If one is vastly different and your camber/toe is looking good, you probably have bent something. However, if that is so, that bent something should be obvious to the eye.

I think I spent about an hour and could do it way faster a second time. It was totally worth the effort to save the dough. I'm thinking of adding this to the spacer install instructions it worked so well.

Good luck.

Frank

Awesome, I'll definitely have to give that a shot. My current tire/wheel setup doesn't leave enough lip for alignment heads to attach so I was kinda worried about how I could realign it. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

This method makes it really easy to get it right.

I would like to tack down the actual specs for our trucks. I'm sure they are on the net somewhere. I couldn't find any old print ups. That way I can reall compare how close you can get Vs. a computerize alignment. My guess is it is every bit as good.

Frank

Does this help?

http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-buchanan/93fsm/servicespecs/17suspensi.pdf

http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-buchanan/93fsm/suspensionandaxle/2-4wd.pdf

That's great stuff!

Using this method, you can get the camber spot on, but if you leave .125" gap top or bottom you are looking at about .25 degrees error. The spec is .75 degree in or out so ypu can really nail it.

As for toe. I thought it was funny that the spec is 50 thou toed in within a window of .080. So basically, make the fronts square or error on the side of a little toe in. .050" on a wheeling 4x4 is ridiculously small as to be laughable.

Frank

Hey now I know that I aint as dumb as I thought I was. I have been doing this same thing for about 8 or 9 years now also with great results and a lot of money saved, The only thing I do different is that I wrap the string around all four tires at the same time. I live in an area with mostly dirt roads and my truck is always getting knocked out of alignment so I brainstormed this idea years ago in an attempt to save a buck. I've even had a couple of "Certified Mechanics" chuckle at the concept until they realized what a great idea it was and then saw how close I was to dead nuts alignment. Don't knock red-neck ingenuity...lol.

I tried to just tie the string to the tires like that, but realized my fronts stick out more than the rears. So, I just measured against the rear tire.

Frank

yeah, ive had pretty good luck with the tape measure, chalk, square, backyard alighnment thing. I bend stuff too much to afford taking it to a shop for an alignment every time, regardless what kinda job they do.

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />This seems to work for me.Use thumb tacks or push pins.Put 1 inthe back middle of the rear tires,1 in the front middle of the front tires.Cut 2 equal lenghts of string or fishing line.I prefer the fishing line,it stretches.Tie 1 end of line to the rear tack and other to front tack.Do both sides. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />Now I have a ???I got a great alignment doing this.but out of curiosity,I measured the distance from the front of 1 rear tire to the other rear tire.Then measured from the rear of 1 front tire to the other front tire.The front tires were almost an inch wider then the rear tires.So,do any of you do this,and what were your results?I reset everything so the front and rear of the front tires were equal to the rear tires.Redid the string thing.Took the truck out and it pulled to the left.Not hard,just drifted.Whatta you guys think I need to check.thanks!! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

My front tires stick out about 1" farther than the rears as well.

Pulling could be due to a camber issue. I'm sure you already did the obvious stuff like rotate tires and check pressure. If one tire is farther back from the other, ei, cross caster is way out, that can cause a pull.

If the torsion bars are unevenly adjusted, that'll do it too.

Frank