Yep, I'm checking the small stuff, i beams look straight, tire pressures ok.
There's a bit of a classic car scene down where I am, might ask around if they recommend a shop with experience on older cars.

In the meantime, here's a couple of vids I found which some of you might find interesting:

 

that one adjustment sleeve adjusts your toe on both tires and just slightly changes the center of your steering gear, but not enough that you loose any lock to lock movement (unless it's crazy off and in that case, i double you have enough adjustment to correct it anyways.) you really need at least one wheel straight to see if you have any toe and you should think about it as over all toe rather than it being a measurement for each side. if you have more toe out on the left than you have toe in (positive tow is pointing inwards) than that's why it's pulling to the left.

there is an upper limit, but negative camber generally improves stability in and of itself, but will eat tires more quickly. your camber could be a result of the drop beams, but if your springs have worn or are shorter than stock with drop beams, that's likely why you have too much camber. i wouldn't get too bent out of shape with that IMO.

i would worry about caster if you drive on the highway... lacking caster can really make driving a vehicle a chore and make a vehicle feel like the steering is overly sensitive and doesn't recenter well. the traditional way to address that would also be bending the beam, but the pivot bushing are soft enough and allow enough flex, that you could to that by getting creative with the holes on the radius arms that attach to the beams or the radius arms. this would not be out of the box stuff and i would not trust and average alignment shop to do something like that, but you could elongate either the upper or lower bolt hole on the radius arm and come up with a way to made a cam style adjustment bolt work.

overall though, if you get your toe adjusted (which any alignment shop can do) it will likely address your main concern. people saying it could be tires or other worn suspension/steering components aren't without merit, but generally those types of things generally don't only cause a constant pull to the left.

 

Did you ever get the issue figured out?

 

It's going to a local shop next week where they have experience with older cars. Hopefully I'll get some measurements and any adjustments that can be made. Will update.

 

So here are the measurements as the truck went in.
Casters are way out but close to even, same with camber. slightly out but close to even.
He toed it in slightly but that's it.
still pulls to the left, just have to live with it. It's not severe or unsafe, just annoying.

 

If I'm reading that right the numbers in white are for a 1985 Courier and are meaningless. The ones in red are your specs. if that's correct your truck is ridiculously out of alignment and needs those "I" beams bent or replaced. If you leave it like it, is you will be buying a lot of front tires.

 

i agree that i'd be looking for new beams or hoping to find the unicorn alignment shop that can bend them... you "can" do it yourself with a torch and jack. if you wanna look up youtube videos of people lifting their 2wd trucks and correcting the camber and caster, it's pretty straight forward, but just because its straight forward doesn't mean everyone should jump in and do it. it's easy to mess up and it's the type of thing you want to be meticulous about.

not sure i'm reading that screen right but it looks like you need a lot more caster. you "could" do that by lowering the frontend with shorter coil springs, but that would also give you more negative camber though. more caster wouldn't necessarily stop it pulling to the left, but it would make the force pulling less as it would help it want to naturally center better. i can't find the specs, but i bet the minimum caster you want is 3-4 degrees. when people experience death wobble with 4wd's its generally recommended to shoot for 6-7 degrees.

 

Other than changing ride height, how exactly is caster usually adjusted/tweaked on a 2 Wheel Drive?
is it also from bending/twisting the beams?

And I can’t say I’ve ever seen an alignment readout screen with that look. I like symbols just as much as the next person, but in this case, it would be nice if they simply spelled out what you were looking at!

 

i think twisting them is the way it should be done, but you can also adjust it by messing with the radius arms. if going that route, the best way would be building a new mount on the frame to lower the radius arm mounts, but you can also drill slots in the top hole that goes under the coil; springs and use cam style washers.

i think ford never intended the camber or caster to need adjustment just based on the design and i think even those hydraulic options to bend the beams were aftermarket solutions.

 

Ford knew there would be the need to adjust caster and camber and designed the tools to do it. If you look in the shop manuals suspension section you will see these tools were super heavy-duty stuff. Looks to me like it would take two men and a boy just to rig these things up on to the "I" beam. I'm sure just about every dealer had a set of tools at one time.

 

i don't know what i'm talking about and was purely guessing, it just seems like something came up with after the fact. it's just crazy to to me to think ford was like "and how they'll adjust the camber is this heavy duty bottle jack with chains and straps that go over either side to press against it."

 

This is how I read it.
Yes, out of spec when compared to the Ford document.
(fact specs optimum desired: caster +4deg, camber +1deg.)
Haven't seen excessive tyre wear, except some on the inside of front right.
Yes, I believe the white figures are not for f100, but the machine should still measure correctly.

 

Do you know what adjustment he did ?
If it is only turning the adjusting screw on the steering box , there is a good chance that that will not FIX the whole problem ,this is a common temporary fix.
Oh , I am referring to manual steering !!!

 

yeah good call there... a lot of people adjust that screw thinking it's tightening steering and like you said it might temporarily do that, but it's adjusting the way the gears mesh together and adjusting it without knowing what you are doing will almost certainly result in your rapidly wearing out your steering box regardless of whether it's a manual or power box!

 

I have also read that it will do more harm than good... ...I think it states this in the service manual.