Fresh alignment but it doesn’t look or feel right

[Avyn Nix]

Just got my alignment done on my 2004 4x4 ranger after I installed the upper an arm adjustment cams and the numbers are different from the left and right sides. The upper arm is not parallel to the lower on both sides either the front mount is about 3/4 of an inch inward compared to the rear mount. The steering doesn’t feel as tight as it did before installing the adjustment cams and it has the fall on its face feel in corners compared to before.

left side
-0.2 camber
3.2 caster
0.04 toe

right side
-0.4 camber
3.5 caster
0.05 toe

Hope you guys can tell me if this looks right, all help is appreciated.

 

[superj]

no me. i have no idea other than being able to see that same differences you see in numbers. how they effect the driving feel, no idea

 

[Avyn Nix]

no me. i have no idea other than being able to see that same differences you see in numbers. how they effect the driving feel, no idea

Ok thanks hopefully someone eke knows a little more.

 

[ericbphoto]

Without seeing the specs, I can't tell. That doesn't look horrible. A tad bit more toe might help it feel better.

Did they give you a sheet with your numbers compared to the specifications? Post a picture if that sheet.

Your comment about the upper and lower arms not being parallel doesn't really mean much. With alignment, it's all about these numbers. To get the numbers exactly perfect can sometimes take a long time. You adjust one thing and it throws something else off. You end up chasing your tail all day long and a technician can't afford to do that unless you want to pay for extra labor. The specs give an acceptable range. A good tech will get it extremely close so you're not at the outer limits of the range. But it should drive right if everything is within that range.

 

[Avyn Nix]

theres the alignment sheet I installed the cams at my house which is why the alignment is so jacked up in the before part. I would’ve preferred for them to get the caster the same.

 

[ericbphoto]

Those numbers are pretty good. Only thing I would do if it feels loose would be to give it a tiny bit more toe in. But not much. I really don't see anything to complain about from the numbers. Of vourse, the rest of us can't drive it to know how it feels. These trucks are not sports cars. You could get it to feel a lot tighter. But you'd pay in reduced tire life.

 

[Avyn Nix]

Ok thanks for the input, I was just making sure that everything looked alright.

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

Lazy google turns up this for '04 specs:

This agrees with your printout on camber and caster, but not toe. It's possible they targeted 2wd toe, but 4x4 actually wants more.
.12° with 30" tires is ~1/8" of toe the old-fashioned way, and I've always been told to aim for 1/16-1/8". So, I would agree you want a little more, but I drive older stuff.

The rest seems fine. On the two sides being different: all other things being equal, vehicles will tend to pull to the side with less caster. US (and most countries) drive on the right, and most roads are sloped outwards for drainage. So, specs often target slightly less caster on the left to compensate. I don't know anything about '04s, but on a lot of vehicles camber and caster are adjusted simultaneously, so it's not necessarily possible to get every value exactly perfect.

If it doesn't appreciably pull or wander and the wheel is centered, that's good enough for me.

 

[Avyn Nix]

Lazy google turns up this for '04 specs:
View attachment 100326
This agrees with your printout on camber and caster, but not toe. It's possible they targeted 2wd toe, but 4x4 actually wants more.
.12° with 30" tires is ~1/8" of toe the old-fashioned way, and I've always been told to aim for 1/16-1/8". So, I would agree you want a little more, but I drive older stuff.

The rest seems fine. On the two sides being different: all other things being equal, vehicles will tend to pull to the side with less caster. US (and most countries) drive on the right, and most roads are sloped outwards for drainage. So, specs often target slightly less caster on the left to compensate. I don't know anything about '04s, but on a lot of vehicles camber and caster are adjusted simultaneously, so it's not necessarily possible to get every value exactly perfect.

If it doesn't appreciably pull or wander and the wheel is centered, that's good enough for me.

Thanks a lot man I really appreciate this info. Should I show this to the shop and tell them to align it properly because it pulls to the a bit?

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

Full disclosure, I'm not an alignment expert. I know "enough" to align my stuff "good enough", because shops here are some combination of busy/ill-equipped/dishonest.

I wouldn't expect much if you take it back, since you're well in-spec. I guess it depends on the details. Is it pulling left? Is it "following the road" whichever way that section of road is graded? Assuming camber and caster increase together, you don't have an enormous amount of room on the camber side to bump your caster up to try and deal with that.

 

[Avyn Nix]

Full disclosure, I'm not an alignment expert. I know "enough" to align my stuff "good enough", because shops here are some combination of busy/ill-equipped/dishonest.

I wouldn't expect much if you take it back, since you're well in-spec. I guess it depends on the details. Is it pulling left? Is it "following the road" whichever way that section of road is graded? Assuming camber and caster increase together, you don't have an enormous amount of room on the camber side to bump your caster up to try and deal with that.

Okay the guy at the alignment shop said that he made it pull to the left to compensate for the roads being sloped to the right but it still pull to hard to the left especially because a lot of the roads I drive in aren’t sloped to the right that much. I really just wanted him to make both sides the same so it tracks straight but he didn’t want to put it back up on the machine. Considering it was $110 for a 2 wheel alignment I’d expect it to be almost perfect.

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

Only you know what it feels like to drive. If it's pulling hard, I'd take it back, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns into a fight, or they want more money to redo it.

 

[Avyn Nix]

Thanks for the heads up I could see that happening, although my appointment was at 3:30 and they didn’t put the truck up on the rack for and hour because one of the workers was cleaning his work are the entire time and all that wait for a 20min shawty alignment. I’m hoping they can be sensible and fix it for free but I don’t think they’re the kind of guys to do that.