Front End Allignment

[bmccumber]

How does a guy adjust the cambor and castor. It's really chewing up the insides of my tires and I rotate every 2500-5000 miles. I've gone through the front end and even had the dealer check it out... it's all okay. I know I read a post at one time or another about an after market fix. Anybody got any suggestions?



Thanks up front... literally,



Butch

 

[bighorn]

caster/ camber

You may want to check if your leaf springs have flattened to the point where it would change the pitch of your front axle, -which would change the caster and camber to a point. Put a hydraulic jack under the truck frame(not front suspension) and as you lift and lower the truck watch the axle,-check for rotation. A quick bandaid fix would be to put shims between springs and axle, but installing new springs to factory specs would probably be the answer.

 

[CRWilliams]

Caster is a non-wear angle. If you are absolutely sure that the upper king pin bushing and lower bearings are OK then it is time to adjust the camber. Most shops will tell you that the Dana 60 front doesn't have a camber adjustment and they would be correct. However Moog makes a lower king pin kit that replaces the flat plate on the bottom and is ground eccentric. This allows you to adjust the camber. The kits are at the very end of the Dodge section in the Moog book and are about $90 apiece. They only take a few minutes to install though if everything is in good shape. Before doing this though, I would have the alignment checked. It's not real common but excessive negative toe can cause the insides of the tires to wear excessively. I have found the best specs on these trucks is 0 degrees camber and about . 10" of positive toe. As I recall the factory specs for toe is 0", but if you give it a little toe it usually helps with the tendency to wander that these trucks have. If you have already had the alignment checked, what were the numbers. If they can't find the Moog part no. in the book let me know and I will go down and find it, I know where to look in the book.

 

[bmccumber]

Thanks for the info... I'm checking the leaf springs tomorrow but I just added a leaf a couple years ago. I can't find the number to that moog part... can you e-mail it to me?



Thanks again



Butch

 

[CRWilliams]

The part no. is K992, it is on page 750 of the Moog chassis book revision 1999. Have you had the alignment checked yet? When I was doing alingments we would realign the vehicle for about 30 days if a bad part was replaced. You might see if your shop is going to charge you twice to check and then set it later if you have to install the adjustment kit. If you have any other questions let me know.

 

[Scot]

"When I was doing alingments we would realign the vehicle for about 30 days if a bad part was replaced. "



Quick question. Re 2x4 alignment. I have never quite understood something and maybe you can shed light on it. When a vehicle is put on the rack, one of the first thing that is done is to lift the front using the dual hydraulic jacks, before any measurments are taken. Then it is let down. It seems that you now have the tires with severe positive chamber due to the a-frame geometry and the tires not able to scuff back out into normal position. . Now they begin making measurements and adjusting things. Just turning the wheels right and left on the swivel wound not seem to me to be enough to bring the chamber back to normal operating position. Tell me, is it vodoo?

 

[CRWilliams]

Actually, they raise the vehicle to "comp" the heads. When you mount the heads on the wheels they usually are not perfectly level or in line with the wheel. So you spin the wheel with the head on it and the computer reads the difference as the wheel is turned and takes into account the differences when showing the true and accurate measurements. It is more involved then that but that is the jist of it. When they set the vehicle back down they pull the pins on the pad that the tire sits on. The pad has basically ball bearings in it and allows the tire to move easily to its at rest position with no pressure on it in any direction. When they turn the wheels back and forth they are taking the caster measurement, this is also required to take steering axle inclination and included angle measurements, which are generally used to see if the frame are some other major component is bent. Like I said before caster is the angle that doesn't really cause any tire wear, it helps with what they call self-centering. It is the reason the vehicle goes straight, hopefully, when you let go of the wheel. If you want I can draw a diagram of the angles and stuff, but think of the front forks on a bicycle. Hope this helps.

 

[Scot]

No need to draw a picture for me. Your expalnation answered my questions. I was not aware the that the pads could roll and let the wheels move out.



Next queston: I have a '55 F100 with a '76 Cordoba torsion bar front end in it. I have had significant tire wear problems on the front but the last guy seemed to have done the best job. Unfortunantly, he is no longer in business. The truck always drives like it is a tricycle. Any uneven bump in the road causes it to head that direction. It is not bad, but somewhat annoying.



Part of the problem may be that the torsion bars are too soft although they came out of a 400 CID car. They appear to be the heaviest that Dodge made. (Do I go to the softer bar, thus having to crank it tighter?) Another thing that may be affecting this is I have more rake than the Cordoba had.



What does adding and subtracting caster do to drive?

 

[CRWilliams]

Very risky undertaking, putting the Cordoba front suspension in it. How did you mount the torsion bar cross member? Did you use the tie rod and ALL the K-frame parts in the conversion? Have you had the alignment checked, what are the measurements? Generally in a pass. car you want about 3 degrees positive caster, this will help the car track straight and the wheel to self-center after a turn. The caster needs to pretty close to match side-to-side of the car will pull one way or the other. I used to set the drivers side a couple of tenths lower to cause a light left pull, this works perfectly with the road crown trying to pull the car to the right. It sounds like a bump-steer problem, which usually means something was done to the tie rod and now the geometry is goobered. Sounds like a very cool truck though, can you send me some pics. If possible send me some pics of the front suspension. What engine is in it? I have a really nasty 440 I need to sell. On the torsion bars, the 400 bars are not really very stiff, the 440 bars are stiffer but a little hard to find. Mopar Performance sells bars all the way up to NASCAR style bars that would rattle your teeth. Get a Mopar Performance catalog and look in the suspension section. One last thought, a lot of guys that do something like this use the F,J,M body front K-member as the torsion bars and everything is in one package and they don't have to worry about messing up the geometry. Getting motor mounts to fit a big block into the small block mounts isn't hard either.

 

[CRWilliams]

Just had another thought, what type and sizes of tires are you running? Sorry the last post was so long winded .



http://www.mopar.com/m_perf_parts_product_part.jsp?categoryID=10024&itemID=703



Hopefully this link will work and you can see the bars Mopar Performance has for the A,B, E, bodies. These should work for you, I don't remember if the bars changed on the later B-bodies. Measure the length of the bars you have and see.

 

[Scot]

Re front suspension. A company called Gibbon Fiberglass Reproductions in Gibbon Nebraska (308-468-6178 from 1991 catalog) sells a number of kits to install the Cordoba parallel torsion bar kit into older Ford and Chevrolet pickups. They build the K member which installs on the original frame.



I bought one of the first ones they built and the design has changed since mine.



I bought a complete K member with the transmission mount/ torsion bar sockets and stripped everything off of it including the sockets which are welded into the new cross member. The donor was a '76 Cordoba (with rich Corinthian leather) with the 400 CID engine. In the case of the '53-'56 F100 style frame, the only cutting required was to inlet the frame approximately 3/4" to clear the steering box and two small cuts into the front crossmember where the core support bolts to clear the strutrod attachment points.



When I built the truck originally I cut the frame and grafted a '74 Ranchero clip in. It sat too low for my taste as it the center of the headlights were 22" off the street. Only then did I learn that state law requires 24" minimum **unless it came that way- another long story**



As I was driving to where I was working on the new frame, I was run off the road and ended up breaking the frame, bending the valance, bumper and both front fenders, 2 tires and wheels. Fortunantly I was able to keep from going into on coming traffic. I almost recovered it when I dropped back into the freeway and it spun. As I slid across loop 820 southbound, facing northbound I prepared for it to roll. Later, on inspection, there was road rash on the sidewalls to the inside of the lettering.



When I got it back in the driveway, it had 994. 2 miles since frame off total restoration.



The engine/transmission were already set so I just put it back in the same place on the new setup. I should have gone ahead and moved everything forward as the oil filter is tight on the steering box and I have never found a set of headers that would clear everything.



I am running a 302 slightly modified, Tremec TKO 5 spd transmission, and 9"limited slip. Front tires are 215-70-15 rear 245-60-15 BF Goodrich T/A radials on Cragar SS wheels. I think I had the last guy put the alignment specs on the recipt. I will search for it. I can e-mail you pics of the truck and scans of Gibbons catalog. I am afraid if I post the truck on this sight, I might get tarred and feathered.