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i have Carli (SPC) shims in place, not able to rotate them. they only go in one direction.
Adjustable radius arms are on my list. however, if there is an obvious problem I can fix before dropping all that money on them, that is the better route. I would hate to spend all that money and still have an issue. Call and talk to them. I can't remember his name. I have a level with rear Blocks and 35s on 20x10 -18 wheels. That wheel contributes. I wish I had got inovate wheels in hindsite but have a lot to consider to change...not to mention price.
that's what I thought but per a Carli engineer they are just SPC 2* caster shims. You can clock them in 8 positions. He was not at all surprised when I told him it was out a little with camber. We actually talked this conversation twice.
Here it is clocked to negate the camber. We tried this but did not have radius arms at the time and the cross caster was way off and it pulled really hard. I still have to go in and adjust this...maybe next week, reset the allignment and then drop the pressure in the steering stabilizer. Here it is set to Carli directions.
that's what I thought but per a Carli engineer they are just SPC 2* Castor shims. You can clock them in 8 positions. He was not at all surprised when I told him it was out a little with camber. We actually talked this conversation twice.
Here it is clocked to negate the camber. We tried this but did not have radius arms at the time and the cross castor was wayboff and it pulled really hard. I still have to go in and adjust this...maybe next week, reset the allignment and then drop the pressure in the steering stabilizer.
is this your driver side?
what was your camber reading? before adjusting the shim?
what was your cross caster and which direction did it pull?
did this correct anything or make it worse?
that's what I thought but per a Carli engineer they are just SPC 2* Castor shims. You can clock them in 8 positions. He was not at all surprised when I told him it was out a little with camber. We actually talked this conversation twice.
Here it is clocked to negate the camber. We tried this but did not have radius arms at the time and the cross castor was wayboff and it pulled really hard. I still have to go in and adjust this...maybe next week, reset the allignment and then drop the pressure in the steering stabilizer./QUOTE]
is this your driver side?
what was your camber reading? before adjusting the shim?
what was your cross caster and which direction did it pull?
did this correct anything or make it worse?
This is my driver side. I do not know the measurements when we clocked it...we did not leave it that way because of the pull. I did not drive it at the time, but suspect it pulled left because the caster would have been way out when we pulled the 2* out. Without the adjustable radius arms I could not adjust the castor so we set it back without measuring.
Current allignment (still need to counter a slight left drift at higway speeds. Nittos have left radial pull and my steering stabilizer is pushing that way. I will not change the steering stabilizer until I fix the camber. My target for allignment is no wondering or pull at highway speeds towing a moderate heavy load).
if I understand you, you did not leave the shim that way or drive it? would clocking that way move the camber more +?
you have since added radius arms and the shim is back in the "normal" direction? are you back to stock shims?
camber is at -0.8 after the radius arms?
I had it at an allignment guy that specialized in offroad vehicles. He wanted to leave it that way until the radius arms came in. I do most work on the truck myself (to include allignments now). I was pretty pissed he had my truck a month and tried to give it back to me the day before an offroad trip with 600 highway miles with the comment it will pull hard to the left until we get more Caster in. That'll be $500. I made him put it back to the way it was which was fine with a slight pull and some wander and took my tuck. I called CJC and spoke with one of the owners that said the same thing Carli did later that night. That is all the stuff I told you in the first post.
I kept the 2* caster bushings because i dumped the stock ones (dumb mistake) i keep everything usually. I haven't gotten around to fixing the camber because it doesn't really do anything. When I dialed in more caster with the radius arms I didn't need to. Eventually I'll get around and play with it. I'll need to clock that to where the shop had it then I'll measure the camber and caster to see how close it is to where i want. Then I'll probably set the radius arms up to have cross caster to compensate for losing some of the caster by changing the camber. Then measure everything throughout the process. It just takes a bunch of time...or money.
I had it at an allignment guy that specialized in offroad vehicles. He wanted to leave it that way until the radius arms came in. I do most work on the truck myself (to include allignments now). I was pretty pissed he had my truck a month and tried to give it back to me the day before an offroad trip with 600 highway miles with the comment it will pull hard to the left until we get more Caster in. That'll be $500. I made him put it back to the way it was which was fine with a slight pull and some wander and took my tuck. I called CJC and spoke with one of the owners that said the same thing Carli did later that night. That is all the stuff I told you in the first post.
I kept the 2* caster bushings because i dumped the stock ones (dumb mistake) i keep everything usually. I haven't gotten around to fixing the camber because it doesn't really do anything. When I dialed in more caster with the radius arms I didn't need to. Eventually I'll get around and play with it. I'll need to clock that to where the shop had it then I'll measure the camber and caster to see how close it is to where i want. Then I'll probably set the radius arms up to have cross caster to compensate for losing some of the caster by changing the camber. Then measure everything throughout the process. It just takes a bunch of time...or money.
gotcha.
did cjc or carli give you any idea what the change in camber would be by clocking that shim?
how much cross caster did the tech say it had that would make it pull hard left?
i am just trying to figure out if I should even mess with with that driver shim or not.
wish I had an alignment machine, I could do all of this myself.
i don't want to keep throwing money at a shop that doesn't know what they are doing, or what the truck needs
sounds like the real way to fix this is with the radius arms. they have been on my short list of truck parts 😏
That's what I did. There were some other videos I looked at which talked about calculating the caster, too. Our trucks have a steering angle screen which made getting the directional angle of the wheels easier. You have to be on a perfectly level piece of ground and then when you use the angle finder I put it on a piece of angle iron. This needs to go the entire length of the diameter of your wheel, edge to edge. My aftermarket wheels were 1/2" bigger diameter than the stock wheels and not going edge to edge was throwing off the camber reading...which throws off your caster calculation.
Don't put much worry into Camber. The settings you have if you were to reduce the left into range, would increase your left pull. Mine is also -1* on the left and .02 on the right, no pull, the Caster is within .1*. Yours is .5* difference, that right there is enough to cause a pull. You mentioned having different cams, try knocking that .5 out and see if it tracks correctly.
I've only posted well over a dozen on this exact issue. But here I go again...
Your pull isn't from caster, or tires, or stabilizers. It's because one side has 1 degree of camber and the other side doesnt. Even from the factory, you will have about .25 to .5 degrees more on the passenger side to account for road crown. A solid axle vehicle should have zero (or as close to 0 as possible) of camber, 4 to 5 of caster, and about .1 to .2 degrees of total toe in (positive toe).
When it comes to alignment, it's not just one thing that will cause an issue. A combination of all those things are working to get you down the road straight. Some will play more than others, but it's still everything coming together.
Find a new shop. there is zero reason it should have left that way. I would also add a tiny bit more toe. Find one that will actually deal with the camber and caster adjustment (most will say you can't change it, the fact is they're just lazy and not wanting to spend labor on such a cheap service)
You can rotate the ball joint slug one notch to help get rid of that camber, but you will also take away caster. If it were me, I would rotate the slug one notch (rotate it so the slot is at the 7 to 8 o clock position when looking down) and take it in to a good shop. You might be close
Bad advice? What bad advice? Camber isn't his issue, that half degree of caster is. Toe isn't his issue, that half degree of caster is. If he adjusts camber only, it will pull even more to the left. The pull IS from caster. A variation side to side on caster will cause a pull towards the side with less positive caster. A variation on camber will pull to the side with MORE positive camber. If camber were the issue it would be pulling like a train to the right. Toe affects wear and steering wheel position, Toe isn't his issue.
What he needs to do is put that other cam in to bring the over positive side to meet the other side, and put the wheels and tires on that will be the main stay and have the alignment rechecked. Changing caster will change the toe, reducing the positive side will bring more toe in and move the steering wheel a bit.
