Need some thoughts/help...



Truck has Carli commuter, adjustable track bar, sway bar, etc... 11k miles on it. street queen, never been offroad

IIR, truck seemed to drive straight, no pull until I put a set of Toyo AT3 37s on it. Truck then had a noticeable pull to the left on some roads, drift on others. However, on some roads it drives straight. I chalked it up to the new tires being wider and grabbing more grooves in the road, or maybe the tires have a radial pull to the left.



after dealing with it for a while, I put the stock tires back on to see if there was any change. Truck still pulls/drifts to the left, but not as bad.



so I had the alignment rechecked yesterday.



caster 4.3 driver side, 4.7 passenger side

toe was out, so they adjusted it

camber was -1.0* on the driver side 🤷🏻‍♂️🤔



my steering wheel was perfectly straight when I dropped it off.



after the adjustment, I'm not sure if it drives any better, and the steering wheel was off.

sure enough, they **cked with the drag link



can adjusting the drag link have any affect on toe? I was under the impression it has nothing to do with anything other than turning the steering wheel



is my caster split causing the drift/pull?



what else to consider?

I have checked everything, and all seems good.



thanks

 

Ive had the same problem on 2018 since new. Always drifts.

there are many differing opinions on the caster. Ive read and heard many say the caster should match. Ive heard and read the passenger side should have more caster to fight the right side/lane road crown since we drive on that side crown more often.


tie rod is what holds the toe-in toe-out. The drag ling is what positions the steering wheel straight or crooked to the wheels.

I had problems with FOMOCO drag links. Factory drag link ball joint on pitman arm side was sloppy. Got a brand new FOMOCO drag link and was sloppy out of the box.
purchased a Mevotech drag link and its still tight as a ticks *** 65,000 miles later.

Tires can effect the way a vehicle drifts or doesnt.

my truck has a front tire that pulls one direction. If i swap the fronts then It pulls the other direction. I cant swap with the rears bc i have 19.5”s on my dually with steer treads on the front and drive treads on the rear. So i have to live with the bum tire.


Tires with a solid outer tread will track straighter vs mud/off road tire without a solid outer tread.

 

I'm not well versed on suspension but when I put on a 3.5 level I used castor bushings and from what I had read, I used 2.3* drivers side and 2.6* passenger side. The truck pulled to the left bad even if the road sloped off to the right. I swapped out the divers side to 2.6* so they were matching. Now the truck tracks mostly straight with a very slight pull to the left depending on the road.

 

makes sense.
my caster bushings are identical on both sides though

on another forum, brake drag was mentioned. so i ordered a laser heat gun to see if the caliper is drastically hotter

 

I gotcha. Will you post an update when it comes in? I'm interested in your findings.

 

Toe on these is adjusted by turning the center link which moves both wheels in or out. Vehicles with rack and pinion steering, each wheel is adjust independently. On our trucks the right side tie rod is attached to the drag link, so when the toe is adjusted in, it turns the steering wheel to the left, and adjusted out, turns it right. The drag link has a sleeve to adjust the steering wheel position, and if the alignment is done correctly the steering wheel is locked in the center position which forces the mechanic to equally adjust both links at the same time. Sounds like he did not do this.

So that addresses your wheel problem, now how much difference is there between the camber? You mentioned -1 on the drivers side. Is the other side 0 or a + number? This will cause a left pull or drift. Caster deals more with centering the wheels and keeping them centered, but a variance between sides can also cause a pull. The more caster on these trucks the better, but they should be very close to each other. Caster greater than 4* will help prevent Death Wobble when the parts are worn. So if the drivers side has a different Caster reading than the passenger side AND a greater than 1* Camber setting, then you can get pull or drift, add in larger more aggressive tires and they increase the pull or drift. You should always have an alignment done with the wheels and tires that will be used the most on it, especially if they are not using the exact same wheels, a wider or narrower wheel can affect alignment results too because the foot print changes where the tread meets the pavement.

 

Don't remember exactly what passenger camber was, think it was 0.1*
wondering how the truck has -1* camber on driver side.
truck has 11K miles on it. never been off road, never any kind of accident 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Camber can be different side to side to offset crown, so it is common to see some variance, but combined with caster, too much can cause pull. Since they did not get the wheel centered and it still pulls, I would take it back and have it redone, and this time go with on the road test to make sure it no longer pulls and the wheel is centered.

There is one other thing that can cause pull or drift, and that is the weight of the driver. I ran into this back in the 90's when I was a mechanic. The owner dropped the car off after hours, paid by card over the phone and picked up after hours and we never saw him. The alignment was perfect, but he complained it still pulled. He dropped it off again, this time after hours, and we checked and told him the car is perfectly aligned, not drifting or pulling when we road tested and he was more than welcome to come and we will ride with him. He showed up, and the dude weighed 400 pounds. DING, the light went off, we didn't even bother road testing, just asked that he sit in the car while we made some adjustment and sent him on his way. Called later thanking us that it drove nice and straight.

Looking at specs I have, Left camber should be in the range of 0.9 to -0.6, -1 is out of range Right camber -0.6 to 0.9. This is 09-19 specs, which I think still holds on up to 22 models since the suspension hasn't changed much.

Caster factory specs 3.4 to 0.8 left and 0.8 to 3.4 right. Toe -0.8 to 0.18 and flip for the right. Thrust angle can also play a part, should be -0.50 to 0.50. It's how the rear wheels affect forward travel, AKA Dog Tracking.

I just had my 2012 done after replacing all the front end parts, and the only thing I couldn't do myself was adjust the toe, and I could clearly see it was toe out, which causes wandering as each front wheel is trying to go it's own direction. My camber is -1 on the left and -0.3 on the right, and does not pull, but my caster is also 5.6 and 5.5 left and right, so pretty equal. The tops of each wheel point in towards the truck, thats what - camber is.

Caster and Camber are adjusted using a cam on the top ball joint. I use the term adjustment lightly because you can turn them but the adjustments are very minor. In my case, if I want a little less camber on the left and a less caster I can tweak the bushing a little by turning it, but only by .1 or .2 tops. Anything greater and the cam has to be replaced.

There is also a combined toe, or total toe and steer ahead angle. Properly adjusted should read all 0, and total toe should read between -0.15 to 0.35, anywhere in this range is OK provided steer ahead is 0.

They should have included a print out for the alignment with the receipt that will have all this information on it.

 

I looked at your first post again, you do have the readouts.

This can cause your pull. The further away from equal the less positive side will pull more. Your Camber is OK, I wouldn't worry about it since the right side would be the pull, not the left with those readings. There is a .4 degree variance, which is enough to cause what you claim. Ideally you want them equal or within .1 degree of each other.

 

here is my printout.
what is baffling me, is the fact I did not really notice the pull until after I put new wheels and tires on it. I swapped to back to the stocks, but pull is still there.

I currently have 1* caster shims installed with my lift. I have .5* and 2* shims on the shelf.
what are your thoughts on installing a .5* shim on the passenger side? theoretically this would put that side at 4.2* ?? 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Give it a try, the worse that could happen is it pulls to the right, but if it does, then you know you are on the right track. That half degree combined with the .18 thrust angle and .3 right rear toe could be just the right combination to push you to the left. At least on these trucks it is easy to adjust caster without having to get it aligned every time, you just need a base line to work off of

 

Bigger wider tires are effected by the road more and will track with irregularities in the road. Different camber can cause a pull. Their caster bushings have been known to throw the camber out. Rotate the bushing one notch to pull the camber in then adjust remaining caster defficit with adjustable radius arms. Truck will pull toward less caster side too. Carli recomments 4.5*-4.9* of caster. If you dont have enough, get asjustable radius arms to add more. Tires may have a radial pull and will go one way or another. I don't know your specific tires. Do some research. Carli stabilizers are gassed to a certain level and push, so depending on high or low mount it will be pushing one direction or another. The directions tell you about that and they can be adjusted in the final steps of the allignment to track the truck straight. Finally, you may need to add 1/16 to 1/8 toe in and it will drive better. It eats the tires just a little bit faster but wanders less.

I went down this road and spent a lot of time talking to Carli and CJC. These answers above are a summary from them.

 

acdii is right, a vehicle will always pull to the side with the least positve caster. All other things being equal....

 

OH Right, Smoking Joe brought up a good point, the steering damper, the good ones at least will push out on the steering, and can cause what appears to be pull, but that depends on the set up. Without crawling under mine to verify, I have the stock setup, not lifted/leveled. The Bilstien I installed originally had a LOT of pressure, it took quite a bit of effort to shorten the rod to install it. The frame side is on the right, the steering side on the left so it would push the steering to the left if I took my hand off the wheel, Not a lot of force, but enough to cause it to drift left a bit. Add in the 1/2 degree of negative caster on the left, and it could very well be the combination of the two. Now with 10K miles on the Bilstein and some pretty rough roads, it no longer causes a drift, but did when first installed. In fact if I turned the wheel to the right with the wheels off the ground, eventually the wheels would turn to the left all on their own from the pressure of that one damper.

 

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.
I have new Toyo AT3 37s. Noticed this pull right after installing them. Figured it was a left radial pull from the tires. Swapped tires side to side, no change. Asking around on other forums, nobody has experienced a left pull with the exact same tires. I know Toyo MT have a well known right radial pull.
So I put the factory wheels and Duratracs back on, pull still there. possibly not as bad, but I chalk that up to them not grabbing as much road.

I thought about the steering stabilizer, thinking it may be bad. I have seen reports of the stocks being bad and nearly impossible to collapse.
The more attention I paid to the steering effort, I have noticed that turning to the right, driving, turning into parking spaces, etc... definitely has more resistance than turning left.
So I actually removed the stabilizer and drove around for 2 days. No changes in the steering effort.
The stabilizer compressed fairly easily, moderate force. I would say it was normal.
For grins, I picked up a Bilstein stabilizer to test and because they are fairly cheap. It compresses with about the same force as the stock.

The Carli low mount stabilizer and adjustable radius arms are on my short list of parts to buy to correct this issue.
However, if there is a problem, I want to correct it before I throw more expensive (possibly unnecessary) parts at it.

Thanks again