need some help with superlift radius arms

[94supersplash]

i'm trying to get my 94' ranger back on the road. it's been sitting in the waiting for me to get time to work on it. i've come back to a problem i had before but just never had the time to deal with. i've tried many alignment shops here in NJ but i just can't get this truck aligned. I am trying to figure out what the problem is, as superlifts manual says the extended radius arms correct the alignment problems.
i took one side of the frontend apart to verify the arm was installed correctly. according to the manual the shortest distance between the mounting hole and the rear bolt go on top. after verifying it was on right i put it back together but it seems very hard to get the bottom bolt to line up.
is it possible that the manual is wrong they should be reversed? shortest distance on the bottom?
is there something else that could be thowing the alignment off?
thanks for any help you guys can give me with this i really miss having this truck on the road.

1994 Ranger Supercab Splash 4x4
superlift 4" superrunner kit
superilft superrunner steering
4" lift leaf springs
4.10 w/limited slip and front tracloc
4.0 w/vortech v2sq
33" mickey thompson baja radial mtx

 

[BlackBII]

Would you happen to have a picture of what your talking about?

I went and looked at superlift's installation manual and couldn't figure out what your talking about.

 

[4x4junkie]

The lower mounting ear on the Superlift extended radius arm is made longer than the upper ear (which adds a bit of positive caster angle to the axle).

You do have them installed correct.

What exactly is the issue with the alignment?

 

[94supersplash]

pictues of the mess

i took the passenger arm off the truck and measured it and the shortest length was on the top. the rear mounts goto the cab rivet holes so i'd hope they are in the right spot

the lower bolt has a lot of torque on it when removing it. to reinstall it requires a lot of pressure to get the hole to line up. i have the rear bolt off the arm as well.
attached is the section of the superlift manual that refers to the distance on

while taking pictures i noticed the driver side axle at the pivot seems to be on a angle. as well as the bolt seems to be overtightened, i'm not sure how that happened as all was torqued and rechecked after the lift.
might be from the one place that tryed to align it. they kept trying to tell me the ranger had 1 bolt for from the bottom of the axle to the top and wouldn't believe the the 4 wheel drive used a stud and a bolt because the axle went through it because he'd been fixen fords for 30 years.
last place that looked at it said it was maxed out. then driving home i hit a bad NJ pothole and the front shifted. seems he loosed the passenger radius arm nut to make it pull inline.
if something got installed wrong its possible, it was the first truck we did to this extent others before were body lift and a jeep. the kit has been on for a while eating tires and wheel bearings. i don't really want to dump a ton of money into the suspension again as it's only for hauling stuff and the beach is hardest offroad it will get.

here is a link to the picasa album of the axle i have some more pictures on my camera of the way the tires where sitting i can upload later.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bill.putnam/RangerAxleRadiusArm?feat=directlink

 

[4x4junkie]

Nothing really out of the ordinary is jumping out at me in your pictures (just everything's a bit rusty though lol).

It's not uncommon to have to force the radius arms a bit to get the bolt holes to line up.

You still didn't say what was wrong with the alignment. Is the caster or camber not alignable? Toe out? Is your steering linkage angle good? (tierods down level with the axle)?
Is the alignment place even competent enough to align it? You'd be very surprised how many incompetent shops are out there when it comes to Fords (them insisting 4WDs have a single bolt thru the axle is a prime example of their ignorance), although you did say you tried several shops...

Maybe this page can help (scroll about halfway down)
http://www.therangerstation.com/Magazine/winter2008/steering_tech.htm

 

[94supersplash]

Nothing really out of the ordinary is jumping out at me in your pictures (just everything's a bit rusty though lol).

It's not uncommon to have to force the radius arms a bit to get the bolt holes to line up.

You still didn't say what was wrong with the alignment. Is the caster or camber not alignable? Toe out? Is your steering linkage angle good? (tierods down level with the axle)?
Is the alignment place even competent enough to align it? You'd be very surprised how many incompetent shops are out there when it comes to Fords (them insisting 4WDs have a single bolt thru the axle is a prime example of their ignorance), although you did say you tried several shops...

Maybe this page can help (scroll about halfway down)
http://www.therangerstation.com/Magazine/winter2008/steering_tech.htm

they basically just say it's maxed out so i don't even think they know they can change the bushing out. right now there was a 1"4x4 camber bushing installed. looks to me like the toe is out and it has too much positive camber

i even took it back to the place that aligned it when we first installed the lift. i get a call and hour later with the manager yelling at me that i lied to him and the truck was HUGE!. yeah a ranger with a 4" lift basically the size of a stock f-150. i still don't understand what the problem is with any of these places the lift doesn't even touch the camber bushings how is it any different to align other than the bigger tires?

i'm going to check over the everything to make sure it's in as the manual calls for and reassemble the one side. i bought a come-a-long so i could pull it back together. i found one place in farmingdale, nj that might be able to handle it. other than that i'm going to get it as straight as i can by hand and take it to my friends house in forked river, nj where my truck looks like a little tonka toy. every time i go there i never see anything less that 40" tires on a truck, so someone around must be able to align them.

my truck is getting a little rusty it was sitting at my friends house for a while as i was sick and it's like a mile from the ocean. his broncoII also had rust problems and the nasty paint cancer. i'm going to spray what i can black while i'm down there. if i didn't already have a nasty car payment from a magnum RT i'd buy a new ford but this is paid for and insurance is very cheap.

i'm stuck in a condo so i haven't been able to do the a lot of real work without getting fined for it. so excuse the bumper the new one is still sitting in a box.
attached is one pic i took before taking the radius arm off hard to tell but that tire has a good angle to it.

thanks for the help

 

[4x4junkie]

Yeah kinda hard to tell how much it's out with it that close up.

It's a shame finding a shop to align these things is so tough, my only guess is there's a total lack of training on these suspensions (with as many of these things out there as there are (them still currently being in production on 2WD F-250s/350s and Econoline vans even), you'd think they'd want to include that in their training courses, but I guess not ).

I suspect your best bet will be a 4WD shop that regularly modifies suspensions. An independent "mom-&-pop" shop that's been around awhile might yield some luck also (other than doing it your(damn)self).


Good luck.

 

[Tyler_b]

I would say being a mechanic myself who understands 4x4 supsensions and 4x4 alignments(modified) that they dont know what they are doing, changing those camber bushings is easy presoak the busings with good penetrating lube and the pinch bolt, losen the pinch bolt, then use chisel and hammer to pop it out, install new ones and align by turning the camber in or out, if you cant make it in to the shop right away you can get it close with an inclonemeter(cant spell lol) to watch you camber as it comes out and in(pos, neg). Remember you must set camber first before toe, It may take a couple times of adjusting camber then toe and then adjusting camber and toe again to get it right. My best ttb setup uses 3 degree cams which you can get very easily, and that gives you a fair bit of adjustment for those who want a stock alignment. I myself and running tuff countrys new 2" drop brackets which are very beefy, 4" James duff coils, gussested superrunner ext radius arms and 3 degree cams, Smallest drop pitman arm which puts steering level from outer tie rod to outer tie rod, with this setup i can dial into stock alignment, or i can give it slight negative camber which seems to work good for longtravel ttbs. If they cant get the alignment down they are doing something wrong...... Hope this helps, i can give you pn if you want for those bushings.