Leveling springs, adjusters with camber and tires plus

[Terry]

Long story short. I completely rebuilt the front end of my 87 4 x 4 ranger. Like most other people, I don't have the tools and a level driveway to do the alignment. I took my truck to tires plus for the alignment. I told the person at the counter that I just finished rebuilding the front end. I did not put the zerk fittings on the lower ball joints on the cotter keys on the to balljoints to make the job a little easier for them. I told the kid this and handed him a little box with said parts. I was called when the job was completed. The paperwork did not have the before numbers. I asked the kid if it was adjusted to spec. He said "it should be". It drove like shit when I drove it home. I pulled out my books and when I looked at the alignment sheet I was blown away. The camber is 3.2 degrees on the left and 2.7 on the right. The caster is 1.2 on the left and .9 on the right. I was pissed off. I called them back and the same kid answered. I asked to speak the the person who did the alignment as the I thought that he did not know what he was doing. He told me NO and hung up on me. I called the companies complaint department and filed a complaint. I recieved a call from another person that works there. I told her the whole story as well as the I put leveling springs in and the double adjusters. She told me that even with the double adjusters the could not bring in the caster. I told her that I had also crawled under the car and saw the adjusters in the same adjustment I had done as well as not cotter keys in the top ball joint bolts. Go my money back and I am going after them so someone that does not wrench does not get screwed as well.

 

[Denisefwd93]

Do you have a TTB front end? If you could ball joints and probably already replaced the pinch bolts that everybody has trouble with, turning the camber bushing is pretty easy.

We just put a magnetic level on the rotor and set the camber bushing to get half a bubble positive. Seems to work okay, I mean it's not rocket science.

 

[Terry]

Well after taking my truck to a shop that I have gone to for some time, I have a direction to go. The camber did not come in much more, the caster is a little better and the toe is good. The guy that did the work told me to drive it for a month or so to let it settle in. The new leveling springs might settle and come in a little better. He checked out my build and told me I did a great job and also how clean it is. What I am looking at now is axle pivot drop brackets and or something if I can find it to drop the radius arms. Eventually when I have the cash I will put a d35 cut and turned but for the near future I want to bring the alignment back into spec. Any recommendations as far as drop brackets and anything for the radius arms????

 

[Dav]

mildly relayed to your post; i did a TIB swap, putting 96 beams under my 88 2wd. thought it would give me much better braking ((and i figure i can still do all the work-ball joints, springs, steering, etc now but in a year or two, i might feel too old to crawl under the truck). frame to tires is all new.
took it to firestone for alignment and brake bleeding. brakes are marginal- pedal goes a lot further down before giving any braking than i think it should. and the front end wanders a fair amount- if i didn't know it's all new, i'd think i had a bad tie rod end.
i took it in on the 3rd of july. they had not done anything at 3pm but had it done at 7;30- too late to get it until the 5th. i have to guess someone did a rush job so they could go home for the fireworks. will call and bitch tomorrow.
where can i find the specs for the alignment? and if 88 and 96 are different, which would be the right specs to use?

 

[Denisefwd93]

Alignment specs are right here on site in the how to section, on home page most people using cell phones can't see it. here http://www.therangerstation.com/how-to/wheels_and_brakes/steering-tech-a-discussion-about-ttb-steering-and-alignment/

You took it to Firestone without asking more questions I can already guess they don't know what they're doing just wasting your money and time.

Most likely, you're going to be doing it yourself, ttb is really simple and easy to adjust, 96, do you have RABS or 4-wheel abs?