Another Alignment Question Left cam maxed at +1.7* camber????

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healthyrx

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Don't want to hijack the current alignment/Zone UCA thread as it looks still unresolved. Just had an alignment at firestone and bought the lifetime alignment package because the truck would drift right on the interstate if I let go of the steering wheel..
After 2.5 hours of waiting the guy comes up to me and tells me that the LF cam is maxed out and the current spec is the best they could do. Also told me their alignment machine isnt working on one of the cameras and they couldnt get the steering wheel strait because of it.
Heres some pics..

If the left front cam really is maxed out, can I just buy a new cam and have it installed and realigned?
Is the front left camber the reason my truck now DIVES right as soon as i let go of the steering wheel?
How fast will this camber trash my tires?

Steering wheel driving straight down the road
IMG_6280.jpg

Left front side alignment cam
IMG_6281.jpg

Right front side alignment cam (disregard the oil on swaybar- i changed the filter yesterday and didnt have a towel in the right place)
IMG_6282.jpg

Left side cam from the rear
IMG_6283.jpg

Right side cam from the rear
IMG_6284.jpg

Printout from firestone
IMG_6285.jpg
 
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kurek

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can I just buy a new cam and have it installed and realigned?

Nope, doesn't work like that. But given that your caster is at extremes at the same time is there any possibility at all that you put the uca's on the wrong side? Can you take a picture of your upper control arm through the wheel well?
 

kurek

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Ok, those aren't backward. How much net lift (not counting body or tire) do you estimate you have?
 
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healthyrx

healthyrx

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I went from 36.5 to 39.5 ground to fender on stock tires when I had lift installed. Eibach pro lift with clip at slot 2 and a rough country 1/2" spacer on top of the eibach on driver and passenger front.
Even though the alignment sheet "before" was all red, the truck drove relatively fine

Now I cant let go of the steering wheel or Ill be in another lane in seconds
 
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When I got my truck aligned this last time, I had to go to 2 different placed to get them to set the steering wheel center ... it was a huge fawken mess that I really don't even care to get into about it again lol ... but find another place to do it at ... these trucks are a pain the rear to align let alone getting the wheel centered if the techs don't know what they are doing ... the last place I went to they actually hooked it up and reset it 3 times before they got it centered .... good luck
 

Quick_Shifter

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@healthyrx these alignment techs keep getting worse. What most places don’t realize is the alignment rack and computer is not a magical machine. The tech needs to have a brain. The first thing I noticed is they are aligning a lifted truck to the factory specs. In the magical computer there are settings to tell it that the truck is lifted. I’m not a fan of excuses or the phrase best we can do, when clearly it’s not. Lifetime alignments or not I would ask around and find a guy that has a brain. I don’t think I would ever let a chain store touch anything because that is the treatment you get. Wait around and it’s wrong anyway
 

crazykid1994

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Yup. Firestone furked up mine real bad. Had to go to an off-road shop by me to get it right. You’ve got the same setup I do. I’ve since lowered down to the first clip to try to resolve the issue with getting the alignment which put me at 2.5” lift. 4 wheel parts did mine with no issues. I’ve yet to go back after dropping the front but everything still looks to be lined up and I plan on swapping struts soon so don’t want to do 2 alignments back to back. Firestone had told me their machine must be messed up and could not resolve my alignment problem. Truck would veer hard right as soon as I let go off the wheel and my truck leaned extremely hard forward right when just sitting. Did not have that issue prior to them attempting to do the alignment and 4 wheel parts thought I had a locked brake when they did the pre test drive because of how poorly my truck drove.
 
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healthyrx

healthyrx

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Awesome! Ill be going to 4WP tomorrow morning! Hopefully they can undo some of this FOO KERY
 
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Is this something I should specifically mention to make sure they fix?
Yes, on a stock truck you "might" get away with not having to reset the steering angle sensor, but when you lift a truck the sensor is looking for the steering wheel's last position in regards to the alignment that it had previous ... so your steering wheel will never be centered until the SAS is reset ...

There is also an order I was taught to do the alignment in order to get lifted trucks aligned correctly ... this is from another thread in which I posted a bit about aligning 1500 Ram Trucks


Have whoever is aligning your truck zero in the toe right at zero first before they adjust anything else ... if you do that then your caster will be fine if its within the range of 2.9 - 4.5 so that it wants to drive as straight as possible ... you can get away with as little caster possible so that the tires don't fight each other when driving down the road ...

So again make sure they adjust the TOE first and have it close to 0 as possible ...
 
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healthyrx

healthyrx

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Have whoever is aligning your truck zero in the toe right at zero first before they adjust anything else ... if you do that then your caster will be fine if its within the range of 2.9 - 4.5 so that it wants to drive as straight as possible ... you can get away with as little caster possible so that the tires don't fight each other when driving down the road ...

So again make sure they adjust the TOE first and have it close to 0 as possible ...
Good info! I will make sure I relay that to the guys at 4WP tomorrow
Thank you
 
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Good info! I will make sure I relay that to the guys at 4WP tomorrow
Thank you
I would never trust 4WP with my truck, here in California the four 4WPs I have gone to in the past were worse than the last alignment shop that tried to align my truck ...

When I first got my truck lifted I was sent to Allen Tire Company, not sure if you have one of those down in South Florida, but these guys really got down with the alignment, I gave them specs and instructions and they were willing to do it and "learn" as one of the older techs there said himself lol ... which really flattered me quite a bit because that tech was in his late 50s early 60s ....

He mentioned the troubles he was having trying to align Ram 1500s in the past and when he saw that my truck got aligned finally with my specs and instructions he was blown away lol ....

The thing with most alignment shops is that they have everything they need already set up in the alignment system, you just punch in year, model, trim blah blah blah and it does it all for you as long as you are doing it on stock vehicles, when you are trying to align lifted trucks things change, angles change, so you have to be a "little" smart as a tech and look outside the box ...
 
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