Alignment issues (pics of shop alignment printout inside)

[94xlt4.0]

first, if your tires were swapped and the truck pulls the other way it sounds like you have a bad tire causing a radial pull. second, to get the camber/caster in spec get the k80153 bushings and use the included chart to put the camber about 2.5 degrees postive and the caster -.25 degrees for the driver side. for the passenger side make the camber 1.0 degree positive and the caster -2.5 degrees. that should get you as close to the center of the specs as possible. then have the toe angles reset. any more questions feel free to ask

[ronclark]

Originally Posted by aeidian

Before




After







Several months ago, I took the old rust bucket into the shop to see if I could get it going straight down the road, as it was pulling hard to the right. It's an 89 4x4 Ranger, 2.9 V6. First they told me they couldn't do anything that would make a difference for less than 500+ because it was "so old and no one works on these anymore", so I told them thanks for the look over, I'll just take it home. So they go talk to the alignment tech and he tells me that if they do a toe alignment it'll go straight. So I say ok, and let them at it. 74 bucks and a tire swap from passenger to driver, it's now pulling hard to the left. They sure saw me coming. Made their money and laughed all the way to the bank. I figured I would give it a few days and then go back in there, but I got so angry about it I just gave up and accepted it. Fast forward to now and as you would expect the drivers side tire is worn pretty good on the inner side about an inch or two. The shop said they couldn't fix this for under 500 bucks (I don't think the truck is worth that much) because of some barrel roll thing. Is there anything I can do, or does anyone have any suggestions?

Looks like a Firestone print out. Not sure what is with shops now days one TTB's it seems the best your get is a toe centering.

I am surprised too, since there are so many Gen1 explorers around.
Les swab wanted to pull my adjustable bushing out and tried to tell me thy cant be aligned whit them and are junk.
Pretty much all the shops around here tell me it cant be done if its been lifted. My first thought is your guys no nothing about TTB's.

Maybe next time I'll talk to Ford thy surely should know how to work on there own stuff

[Insanejughead]

Those idiots need to be educated...

[aeidian]

Gonna take a crack at this tomorrow. I got those bushings, do I need to get an angle gauge? Can I just put them in and then adjust it down the degrees you listed or is the camber going to change just putting them in? I'm trying to avoid taking it back to that shop.

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[4x4junkie]

I would probably start with the bushings set to 0° (or whatever their minimum is) and start from there.

Camber is pretty easy to see by eyeball (though a camber gauge or even a simple level can be used against the edge of the rim too). Toe is easy to set using a chalk like around the tire and a tape measure. Dialing in the caster will require you drive it around a bit to see which way it's pulling though (it's explained pretty well in the link I gave earlier).

One thing it's imperative you have though are good tires. It's quite obvious you'll never be able to get it dialed in using this method with the ones you have on it right now, so I'd plan on getting some tires for it first (if your rear ones are in good shape, you might be OK swapping those to the front).

[CJzBlack93RNGR]

been doing alignments for years..
Eccentric bushings are easy but can be complicated.
Keep in mind they can be "added labor" depending where you go.
You will be charged a flat rate fee for an alignment usually range from 60-100.
If you need bushings they will charge you for the bushing (extra labor for installing them and figuring out what size ill explain more about it later)

The Hunter WinAlign system they used has a automatic bushing calcualtor inside it. If you have previous eccentric cam bushings installed its a cake walk there they could've inputed the numbers (sizes) on the top of each and manually inputed what the desired adjustment change they want is and it will compute everything for you... Telling you what size (degree) bushing you need to install per side. (it isnt uncommon for the left and right side to call for different size bushings.)

If you dont have eccentric bushings installed they can guess (I honostly will sometimes guess, its faster and I can usually figure it out but i do make mistakes and some cases guessing doesnt work! LOL)

The REAL way to calculate a eccentric bushing if you have the stock non adjustable bushing in is this: (Why usually you get added labor)
"instead of guessing numbers" you remove the stock bushing (techs who do bushing adjustments and arent retarded ALWAYS have a "ZERO OFFSET BUSHING" on hand in their tool box or that stays at the hunter cabinet.
Basically you have to remove the stock bushings, install the zero offset bushing re-measure your caster. Then you open the calcuator and set it off of "0" it will compute it for you and tell you what exact bushings are needed so the tech can adjust both camber and caster perfect.
If they adjust it and camber or caster gets maxed out some where they didnt calculate it right.

[aeidian]

Ok, so I decided to take a crack at this today. I got the pin out of the top nut, took the nut off, then removed the c-clip. I've tried prying up on this, and twisting it, but I can't get it to budge. I've had PB on it for about an hour now. I can't seem to find a decent spot to grab to pry, that lip is only about an 1/8" of an inch. Is there something else I'm supposed to remove first before prying? I put the nut back on the top and beat on it with a hammer because I read somewhere that it can make the bushing come up if you do. I haven't had any luck with that. I did spread the gap slot a bit with a pry bar and then a chisel, but that doesn't seem to have helped.

[aeidian]

I finally got the passenger side to come out by beating on the bolt (with the nut on the bolt so as not to damage the threads) on the upper ball joint until the upper ball joint dropped down and then I could beat the camber bushing side to side until it came out. What a bitch. I dialed in the replacement adjustable bushing and beat it down as far as I could but it doesn't sit flush, I can't get it to go any farther. I torqued the upper ball joint nut to 100ft lbs. It still doesn't look right but I can't figure any other way to get it to go on there. The ball joint boot doesn't sit flush against the frame either.












I've gotten it to go a little but farther down by using a punch on the outside ring tabs, but I don't think I can get it anymore. The ball joint seems to be angled back now too, but I guess that's the point right? The camber and caster change?

[4x4junkie]

I see nothing unusual there, as long as everything is in place tight, it's fine. The boot is probably old and has taken a "set" in the old position the ball joint was in. It may flatten out after a bit, though I would probably suggest getting new ones for it.

[aeidian]

After making the adjustments I thought I needed I ended up with a pretty massive positive camber, so I decided to set the bushings to 0 degree and take it to the alignment shop and have them check it from scratch, then I would take it home and make the adjustments based on what they measured. Here's the printout of what the alignment looks like after I had set the bushings to 0 degree which is N/TU (N/TU on the chart below is 0 camber and 0 caster).




I was aiming for .5 camber and 3.5 caster since that's about dead middle. So using the chart below I came up with these figures:

-1.0 + 1.5 = 0.5 driver camber
4.6 - 1.0 = 3.6 driver caster

-1.4 + 2.0 = 0.6 passenger camber
3.8 - 0.25 = 3.55 passenger caster

So going off this chart I need to add 1.5 degrees to driver camber, -1.0 degrees from driver caster which gives me I/V. I need to add 2.0 degrees to passenger camber, -0.25 degrees to passenger caster which gives me ST/QR:






Now either I'm reading this chart completely wrong, my math is off, or I'm doing something really wrong here because once I applied the changes to the drivers side bushing and set it to I/V I had a massive positive camber. I haven't done the passenger side and have not had it re measured but I can tell just by looking at it that this isn't right. What's wrong here? I'm clearly screwing something up in the figures, what letters do I need to set the bushing to to correct the degrees?

[brinker88]

You wont get a proper reading if you have the tires off the ground when adjusting the bushing.

[aeidian]

Originally Posted by brinker88

You wont get a proper reading if you have the tires off the ground when adjusting the bushing.

Are my figures correct then? Did I set the bushing to the right letters based on the chart? I have to say it's significantly angled out on the top and I don't believe it's going to straighten up even sitting flat.