Ya that thrust angle is what made me look at the toe in the rear. that is why I said check the rear axle out just to be safe.
As for everything else, these shops seam to be happy with the specs being with in limits, but in all reality ford has a REAL number set for what the specs should be and then "tolerences" basically means a "safe range" if one side is on the high end of the "safe range" and the other wheal is at the low end you are going to have issues.

GO TO A REAL ALIGNMENT SHOP ! ! ! stop dealing with this lube pros place.

 

Good video on F250 ball joints:
How To Replace Worn Ball Joints Ford F250 Truck - YouTube

This thread has a lot of info on alignments which will help anyone with questions on what camber, caster and toe mean. It also has the specs with the OEM range of tolerance. The range is so large that it is total BS....
Alignment specs and recommendations - PowerStrokeNation : Ford Powerstroke Diesel Forum
However, the specs on here look more normal/accurate:
front end alignment specs - Diesel Forum - TheDieselStop.com


Here is what you should be looking for with specs:

Camber: As similar as possible comparing left to right. Somewhere between -0.5 and -1.0 degrees would be great. If you have -0.5 degrees on the driver side, you want -0.5 degrees on the passenger side or as close as possible. Try and stay within -0.3 difference. You do NOT want positive camber.

Caster: You want them to try and get close to the max of the range as it will give you a more stable feel. The max spec is 5.5 degrees. Ask them to try and get. A minimum of 3.5degrees is what you should accept and if you can't get it try and figure out why. You typically want 0.5 degree more caster on the passenger side to counteract road crown and help the truck track straight. So if you get 3.5* on the driver side, a nice number for the passenger side would be between 3.5* and 4.0*.

The manual says 3.5 as the average value with a tolerance of 2 degrees which is an idiotically huge friggin tolerance. Tolerance should be no larger than 0.5 degrees.

Toe: You want a little bit of Toe-In on the front tires and you want the same number on both sides. Toe-In is +. Toe-Out is a negative value. Your toe setting looks perfect at +0.06 degrees and +0.05 degrees left and right respectively.

Thrust Angle should be 0. Thrust Angle at 0 means your truck isn't "dog tracking" so the front and rear wheels are directly in line with each other.


Precision is the single most important thing about alignments. The difficult thing about alignments is that it really depends that the person doing the alignment understands that minor variances are not acceptable and will lead to odd feeling truck or car. If they understand that and care enough to do a GREAT job, the difference from one side to the other will be within one tenth - or very small. Any chain shop generally doesn't give a flying bats tail in my experience. The cheaper the shop the worse the alignment as the tech isn't getting paid to care. Those offering lifetime alignments are really offering a life time of crappy alignments.

When you call to make an appointment, ask them whether they can align to your specs. If they say no, move onto the next shop. Try to find where the guys that race and autox (autocross) take their cars. Those are the shops that will have a decent alignment tech that cares. They may ask you to pay more which is fine since they can easily spend over an hour if they are taking the time to do it right.


Whenever I move somewhere new and am looking for an alignment shop, I usually search the regional forums for Miata, BMW, Corvette or Porsche forums for recommendations. Those guys often know where to go. Then call and see if they do trucks and confirm they will do to your specs.

 

I agree with you on everything, but I do take some offense to the "Any chain shop generally doesn't give a flying bats tail " part. I work at a large chain shop maybe you have heard of us NTB. And plain and simple no matter where you go it just depends on the tech. Example: did an alignment on 09 corvette last week got everything dead on, guest was so happy he told fam and friends, 2 days later did his buddy's 98 vette. So it is not really the SHOP just the TECH. I hate when people make assumptions about MY work just because of the name on the building.

 

Hello Philip, its been awhile.. As for your steering wandering. Just for kickers, and if it hasn't been mentioned yet. You have those bigger D rated 315's on your truck, did you notice anything different in handling when you changed tire size from the stock 265 E rated tires to the 315's?? My experience going from a E rated stockers to a D rated then back to a E rated tire was like nite and day. With my last set of D rated tires they rode cushy and not to stable and I was constantly correcting while steering compared to a stiffer E rated tire, that (possibly) could be your problem.

 

thanks for all the advice guys. i have a lot of work ahead of me. i want to be able to tell the guy what i want without sounding like an idiot...lots of goodinfo here for not just me but anyone else that has this problem...


and mike good to hear from your brother. i thought the same but i still had the slop with the d's...im guna try this alignment thing andball joint replacement to get myself goin

 

Mr. Finch,

You are indeed correct. That was an unfair generalization on my part and I apologize. Sadly, too many times the generalization has proven true for me and I got on my soap box.

Kudos to you for taking pride in your work and doing a great job. You should post your shop info and first name so others in your area know where to go and who to ask for.