Overall I would say your angles look within tolerance. They or you appeared to have installed a drop kit to get the angles right, if so then you should be inside the performance envelope and it all works...but I also noticed you have a dropped pittman arm.

Take from me, it is easy to get those in the wrong spot because of the splines are quite fine and there is a reason for that! So you to get a centered steering wheel.

OK: Center your Pittman arm it should be facing straight back and centered on the lower steering box. EZ way is to have someone in the cab turning the steering wheel until it comes to center. Then look at your wheel in the truck, is it centered? You can also reverse and center the steering wheel in the truck, then get under and look at the Pittman arm. Be sure to remove the Pittman side drag link connection,

If you need to center the Pittman arm then take a large hand sledgehammer, 2 -2 1.2 lb head and strike the Pittman arm on the round side. Give some WD 40 beforehand and let soak or any soaking thin oil, strike and it should come loose.

Now get the specs on Toe for your truck. Look at your tie rod and make sure its centered on the tie rod ends, you can do that by counting the threads, this gives you adjustment room and insures it properly supported.. Count threads on either end, ook at opposite end and adjust to give same thread count.

Tape measure that measures in 1/32 or 1/16th as a min.

to set toe:

Setting Toe: Check that toe is about 1/8-inch +/- 1/16-inch, toe in. When doing alignments, toe is always the last setting.

A) Should you spend your bucks to get an alignment? No, I can not see any reason to at all. While their 'belt-fed, laser aimed, water cooled' alignment machine will spew out corrections down the the micro level...fact is not of that works much better than doing it yourself.

WHY? You are dealing with: 2 tie rod ends, 4 ball joints and a rubber tire. All of this has give, even if brand new, that is the way its made. If you get and you can get accuracy to within 1/16th of an inch, you will do as well as any shop does. (NOTE: They use rotating pads to keep the tire from scrubbing and rebounding. Putting the axles on jack stands as suggested is a good idea.)

Not saying that on occasion you should not spend your ducats to get an alignment. I do about every 5 years or so. Mostly to look for wear and looseness in the components. These guys who do this every day have a better feel for that I I do.

B) Setting the toe: Viewing the tire(s) from the side some things are very critical. Know the keys and success will be the result.

key: where you measure on the front side of the tires NEEDS to be the same exact spot (height from the ground) on all 4 tires.

key: measure as high UP on the tire as you can get at on front, back and the same place on the other tire.

key: the OPTIMAL point is the max forward leading and rear trailing point of the tire. Like this: ' >0< ' WHY? as you go DOWN and around the tire the front and rear points get closer together and in order to get you 1/8th toe in (+/- 1/16th in) you adjustments have to get larger meaning the wheel has to be moved more in order to get the 1/8th in difference.

After you have set your toe, drove it and then rechecked it, YES it will likely change some, but about 1/16th is within tolerance.

Now take a tape measure and measure from 1 grease fitting to the other grease fitting on your tie rod. Using a 'silver' perm marker write it down on any flat surface underneath and annotate whether or not you measured from the outside or inside of the grease fitting. Ever need to remove or replace your tie road or get a bent tie rod then just look at your measurement between the grease fittings and use that as a starting point. It should be VERY close.

Remember you need to loosen BOTH jam nuts on the tie rod and on the drag link then turn the tie rod/drag link, then tighten your jam nuts. TIP: You want to note the amount of visible threads and try to get the tie rod ends at the same depth on each side.

Those are the principles or keys if you will that will insure you get as good a toe in as the shop does.


If you are not comfortable then stop off at any shop and don't let them sell you on some lifetime wheel alignment accurate within a millionth of an inch crap.


Let us know if this helps...