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I bought a 1994 Clubwagon w/ wheelchair lift this past January and put new tires all around (Hankook Optimo H727 Tire, P235/75R15XL). While replacing the disc brake pads I noticed the right front tire had a slight wear pattern of feathering that you could barely feel. On a flat parking lot it rolled straight, hands off the steering wheel. I took it to an independent shop for an alignment and discovered all ball joints were sloppy loose. Parts replaced and alignment done. They installed eccentric caster & camber sleeves to be able to pull it all in. After taking it out on a state hiway I noticed a slight pull to the right on both sides of the 2 lane road. That had me to look at the printout from the alignment. Individual sides look ok but the "cross caster" seems out of range? Could one of you from a garage interpret this for me?
(see attachment)
Cracks me up- some people blur out their license plate numbers, but our good buddy Jeff Robertson here posts his full name and phone number and VIN and the shop info. Lol
Anyway yeah they LF caster is way out. Probably a lazy technician or maybe the adjuster part was wrong and non-returnable.
I received the seat lift motor so I was able to make an appointment to have the alignment redone. The attachment shows the outcome. It steers as you would expect now and I'm going to be looking at one of those steering stabilizers from Jegs mentioned elsewhere. The body catching wind buffets of other vehicles is new to me (former sedan driver).
BTW, wheelchair vans list toward the passenger side when the coil spring breaks down due to the load exerted entering/exiting the van, this affects the camber, as the van starts to lean due to wear, that side, due to steering geometry will need corrected. I put ride-rite air bags inside my coils, aired to 35 PSI, drove it a week to settle in before getting an alignment done, then just had to keep the pressure where I set it up, this avoids the break down of the coils that the use of the lift causes. My 73 doesn't have the bags, don't see the ability to add them, gonna need to stock up on coil springs.
Back in 2001 I had ball joints put on my drivers side of my 99 E350 after hitting a hole in the road, $350 and I learned to dodge them after that.
Alignment question
