Drag link weld question (sorry!)

[JR]

Depends on where you live with the roads.

Where I live, roads chew up alignments and suspension components.

I live in a very rural part of northern Ohio.
The roads heave and buckle every year from the freeze/thaw cycles and the fix for our fiscally poor county is cold patch. Lots of cold patch.

Tires are expensive too.

I agree. Which is why I perform periodic checks on steering and suspension components which are far more likely to cause tire wear issues. So long as care is given to retain the original components adjustment I've never had the need for an alignment and always gotten long tire life with proper rotations and pressures.

 

[Cummins2014]

I heard this before... Is this common in America to have an alignment with a tire change? What is this good for?

It's not for me . I had my 2014 Ram aligned ,after I got the new drag link . Wanted it set to the Thuren specs , only reason . Although I had never noticed any abnormal wear on my tires before ,or after .

 

[Cummins12V98]

I had my alignment guy do the 1/64" toe on my 15 early and now has 128k and tires are still wearing good. I only rotate fronts on my DRW. I have them leave wheels where they are and move tires side to side keeping rotation the same. This places the outside edges on the inside. Last set I replaced at 68k with at least 5k left.

 

[Ozymandias]

If we talk about alignment, check out this >> https://gyraline.com/
My buddy has it and I tried it myself hands-on, crazy technology and works perfect.
Hard to believe but it does.

 

[Diesel85]

I live in a very rural part of northern Ohio.
The roads heave and buckle every year from the freeze/thaw cycles and the fix for our fiscally poor county is cold patch. Lots of cold patch.

I agree. Which is why I perform periodic checks on steering and suspension components which are far more likely to cause tire wear issues. So long as care is given to retain the original components adjustment I've never had the need for an alignment and always gotten long tire life with proper rotations and pressures.

You must be lucky. My work truck 3500 is usually out of alignment needing something every 60-70k.

My 2020 1500 was out of alignment at 50k.

If we talk about alignment, check out this >> https://gyraline.com/
My buddy has it and I tried it myself hands-on, crazy technology and works perfect.
Hard to believe but it does.

I have these when I replace suspension/steering parts.

They work great for getting an initial adjustment, but do take work to get it right on.

 

[Cummins12V98]

My son when replacing his drag link and? Sprayed paint on tread near outer edge of front tires while spinning tires. While paint was wet spun tire and held a screwdriver to the tire leaving a perfect line around each tire. Measuring line to line front and back until front dimension was slightly less. Later on took it to get it set to Thuren specs and he was spot on.