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Strange camber changes (TTB) when backing up and going forward?


cstarbard

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Hey guys,

I'm trying to better align my truck today which has stock ride height, TTB front end (1996). I'm having a very strange issue where the camber changes dramatically when pulling forward, and while backing up. Basically, if I pull forward and stop, I get 2 degrees of negative camber, and if I back up, I end up with 0-2 degrees positive camber.

Here's what I have done so far:

I have adjusted the camber caster bushings (oem style, with codependent camber/caster adjustment, I think this is called a "fixed bushing"?). Before messing with them, I had about 1-2 degrees positive camber on both sides, which was pretty consistent. It was wearing my tires exactly as you would expect, they both have camber wear on the side you would expect. I checked the camber using an angle finder across two lug posts on each wheel, with each wheel sitting on a plate placed across small pipes all of equal diameter, to make sure the suspension had fully settled.

So, after measuring, I took the wheels off and went through the steps of adjusting camber, now using an angle finder on my rotor since the wheels were off. The pre-adjustment measurement made sense with what I saw with the wheels on, so I went ahead and set the camber to 0 degrees on both rotors. Put the wheels back on, put the tires back on the plates and pipes setup, got 0 degrees on both wheels after cycling suspension up and down.

I go for a test ride, the changes I made in caster feel good, but when I got home, pulling into my driveway and parking, I noticed that both front wheels had visible negative camber. Measured to be almost 2 degrees. For kicks I backed the truck up and stopped, that measured almost 2 degrees positive camber on both wheels.

Can anyone explain why this is happening and how I go about fixing it? I can't really comprehend why backing up and going forward should change my camber like this. I never noticed this issue before.

Pinch bolts were torqued to spec, I can see the bushings have not moved.

I understand that the with the ttb the wheels travel in a curved arc, not straight up and down, which results in camber changes throughout their travel, but I can't wrap my head around why driving on my flat driveway would cause what I'm experiencing. Thanks in advance.
 


lvwill

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Sounds like the toe is too far out. If it's toed out a little bit the suspension will be pulled down when going forward and Jack a little when in reverse.
 

cstarbard

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Thank you!!

The toe got out recently which I made another thread about. I was going to fix the toe after the camber adjustment, I just couldn't wrap my head around what was going on here so I left the toe alone for right now.

I'll fix that, I hope it solves the issue. Thanks a lot.

Is it possible the axle pivot bushings going bad could also cause this? If I'm thinking about it right, if the axle pivot bushings were bad enough that beams could slide in and out relative to the centerline of the vehicle, that could cause strange camber changes as well? And supposing if I stop going forward, that would shift weight to the front in which case I would expect negative camber as a result of bad axle pivots, and positive in reverse because weight shifts towards the rear. Is this possible as well?
 

JamesH

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Simply put. Mabey. Any bad bushings could mess with alignment. Have you check your wheel bearings for play? I know my camber is out because I have a bearing going bad. If the raced is oval it can cause it to move the hub and skew readings. Or the spindle/ rotor hub could be bent/warped causing issues.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk
 

cstarbard

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Simply put. Mabey. Any bad bushings could mess with alignment. Have you check your wheel bearings for play? I know my camber is out because I have a bearing going bad. If the raced is oval it can cause it to move the hub and skew readings. Or the spindle/ rotor hub could be bent/warped causing issues.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk
Thanks for the reply. My bearings and races are brand new (less than a month old) and I had the rotors turned at the same time. Turning them, I can tell they aren't warped. I checked the wheel bearings for play before starting this, they don't have any play. I couldn't find any play in the ball joints, wheel bearings, tie rod ends- no play anywhere that I could find. I also know the spindles are not warped, I have had both off in the last year and they were totally ok.

I re set the bushings to try to help, since my truck seemed to want to settle to negative camber on the front wheels with the front wheels on plates and rollers. The changes are slightly less dramatic now but it still happens. I also set the toe which seemed to help reduce the dramatic changes in camber a little bit, and the truck tracks pretty straight now but the camber changing is still there, feels weird driving and is driving me crazy lol.

All help is appreciated. What I don't understand is that before I changed the position of the bushings, I didn't have this dramatic change of camber backing up and pulling forward.
 
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lvwill

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Believe it or not adjusting the camber bushings will change the toe. The toe setting needs to be as close to 0 as possible to slightly in but never out. I got fed up and finally just found a shop that has people experienced with ttb and had the ranger aligned. It was very close to spec but it's night and day difference now.
 

cstarbard

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Believe it or not adjusting the camber bushings will change the toe. The toe setting needs to be as close to 0 as possible to slightly in but never out. I got fed up and finally just found a shop that has people experienced with ttb and had the ranger aligned. It was very close to spec but it's night and day difference now.
Lucky guy! The alignment shops here always set up our TTB rangers totally wrong, if they even try at all (one time my brother took his TTB ranger to a shop we have used for years, and we looked after alignment and they hadn't changed anything at all, even though all of it was measurably far out of spec).

Thanks again Ivwill. I couldn't wrap my head around the camber affecting toe but you are 150% right.

I spent a lot of time yesterday working on it, and I am not 100% done but I got very close. Every time I changed the camber, the toe would be way off. I would set the toe, go for a short drive, and when I came back, from the suspension settling or something, my toe would be off from where I had last set it. After getting the camber where I wanted it, I had to adjust the toe 4 or so times, taking short loops up my street and back between adjustments. I got it to the point where the toe hasn't moved finally but I somehow got just a hair of negative camber in both wheels when all is said and done. I was aiming for 0 degrees in both wheels, figuring that 0 was a good baseline since the travel during normal driving results in both negative and positive camber at different points in the travel. I figured not having a baseline skew to the camber would help. And I got a lot of camber wear on my tires before all this, when I had set the toe previously without adjusting the camber bushings at all.

Here's what I learned for anyone who reads this thread later and needs some quick help:

Like will said, the toe is sensitive to camber adjustments, and at least in my experience it seems like you will have to adjust the toe several times after your initial camber change before the suspension stops settling for lack of a better word?

Also, when measuring camber at the rotor with wheels on plates and rollers, I would get one measurement. If I then took the wheels off and raised the front end with jacks, the measurement I would get at the rotor would be different, and I had to had 2-3 degrees positive camber in the bushings at this point to get my truck to have 0 degrees when the wheels were back on and the truck was on plates and rollers.

And of course like others said, make sure you don't have play in any steering links, tie rod ends, wheel bearings etc.

I will be replacing my axle pivot bushings soon and will update this thread then. Any other advice you all have is greatly appreciated.
 

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Agreed, your problem (the camber changing when you reverse direction) is caused by bad toe.

You cannot check any aspect of the front wheel alignment on an IFS (TTB) truck if the truck is not down on the ground (on it's wheels) and the suspension fully settled (and is why things were different when you jacked it up).

You might review the procedure I wrote out here (about halfway down):
http://www.therangerstation.com/Magazine/winter2008/steering_tech.htm

There shouldn't be a need to drive the truck around when you're setting toe and camber. It's only for caster would you need to drive it (and only to check for a drift or wander condition, as well as the steering wheel being centered).

Changing the camber or caster settings changes the position of the steering knuckle slightly, which is why you need to recheck the toe afterward. You may have to go through both the toe and caster procedures a couple times before you get everything correct.


FWIW, bad pivot and/or radius arm bushings will allow the axle to shift around, and this indeed can cause the alignment to be lost as well. I suggest putting all new bushings in there before making any further attempt to align it (you'll have to align it again after the new bushings anyway, even if you can get it to hold an alignment beforehand).
 

cstarbard

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Agreed, your problem (the camber changing when you reverse direction) is caused by bad toe.

You cannot check any aspect of the front wheel alignment on an IFS (TTB) truck if the truck is not down on the ground (on it's wheels) and the suspension fully settled (and is why things were different when you jacked it up).

You might review the procedure I wrote out here (about halfway down):
http://www.therangerstation.com/Magazine/winter2008/steering_tech.htm

There shouldn't be a need to drive the truck around when you're setting toe and camber. It's only for caster would you need to drive it (and only to check for a drift or wander condition, as well as the steering wheel being centered).

Changing the camber or caster settings changes the position of the steering knuckle slightly, which is why you need to recheck the toe afterward. You may have to go through both the toe and caster procedures a couple times before you get everything correct.


FWIW, bad pivot and/or radius arm bushings will allow the axle to shift around, and this indeed can cause the alignment to be lost as well. I suggest putting all new bushings in there before making any further attempt to align it (you'll have to align it again after the new bushings anyway, even if you can get it to hold an alignment beforehand).
Thanks as always! I did read your procedure about alignment. Super helpful, very appreciative that you wrote that for us.

Everything you said makes sense. After I spent a lot of time trying to get the toe to stop changing, I bought new axle pivot bushings to put in. I bet those are the problemi, should have them put in today.

Thanks again to all of you
 

cstarbard

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Well I put in new polyurethane axle pivot bushings from energy suspension last night. Pretty straightforward, nice bushings.

My old axle pivots actually did not look that bad. One was very new looking (for driver side beam), and passenger side beam was definitely old but still in ok shape.

I did not seem to experience any changes in camber or toe as result of the new bushings; I checked before and after the new installation and it all looks good still.

I haven't experienced any more weird camber changes pulling forward or backing up, so at least that's gone. This had stopped after my last toe adjustment before replacing the axle pivot bushings.

Alignment is pretty good but I could definitely use more caster adjustment, because the truck pulls to the passenger side with everything else being good and I have 0 caster on that side when camber is dialed in correctly, as I mentioned.

I'll get some more adjustable camber caster bushings and see how good I can get this. Aligning the TTB is definitely part art part torture :icon_rofl: I really appreciate all your help
 

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It's not so hard once you have it down... you just have to remember that adjustments on an IFS generally interact with one another, so things have to be done in a particular order:

1. Rough in the Toe by eyeball if needed (not critical that it's perfect yet)

2. Set Camber to how you want it (spec is +0.25°, I usually go 0.5° on TTB trucks),

3. Set Toe as outlined in the link above (tires parallel, to 1/8" toe-in).

4. Drive it to check for drift/pull (proper Caster angle adjustment) & steering wheel position,

5. If #4 indicates any needed adjustments, recheck Toe again afterward.

Repeat 4 & 5 until all is good (Toe should always be the last thing you adjust).

You should find the 2-pc camber/caster bushings (and their settings chart) make this process a lot easier (using fixed-degree bushings is much more a PITA).
 

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