i bought a 79 bronco with a 4" lift already installed.The previuos owner only installed taller springs and no other mods.When I bought new tires I went for an alignment and the shop said I needed to remove the 0 degree bushings on the top of the balljoints and install offset bushings to correct the caster from the lift.When I got the truck back from the shop I noticed that the tires lean out at the top quite a lot more than before and I was concerned that it would wear the outside of the tired fast,but the shop said it was set up as close to facory specs as possible and that the outward lean was normal and needed to get the truck to drive straight.After 6-8 months the tires are wearing considerably on the outside, and I have never been happy with the ride quality from the front end.I am going to install 4 degree offset bushings on the radius arms to try and correct the caster as I dont want to add drop radius arm brackets, and my main question is, after doing so can I go back to the 0 degree bushings on the balljoints to try and position the front tires on more of a vertical plane for a more even wear ?? Will this affect the ride quality?? And if these trucks came with 0 degree bushings from the factory, why do all the alignment shops say you need the offset bushings..are they just trying to do the alignment the quick/lazy way at my xpence(ie accelerated tire wear)?????

 

I would suggest changing the C-bushings on the axle rather than the radius arm bushings.You can get up to 6 degrees,with the radius arm bushings the most you'll get is probably 2-2 1/2 degrees.Once that's done try to get the camber as close to 0 as possible.

 

sorry for the bad wording, I meant that I was going to change the c-bushings (4 degree) on the radius arms to try and correct the steering geometry, I think that should be enough with only a 4" lift, but my real question was about the outward lean on the wheels.The factory bushing on the top of the balljoint is referred to as a 0 degree bushing.If this was the way it was set up factory why would I need an offset bushing to aling the wheels ? What is the proper setup for the wheel alignment? Should the wheels lean outwards at the top, or is this done to correct other problems due to the lift installed? And what is the proper way to correct this ?

 

The sleeve (bushing) adjusts camber and caster.By your truck being lifted with just springs,the caster went towards the negative.I have to assume the alignment shop was trying to get the caster back to where it's supposed to be and in the process ended up with too much possitive camber (top of wheel leaning out).As I said before,once you install the new c-bushings you can reset the camber to as close to 0 degrees as possible ( 1/2 degree one way or the other is okay).As far as the sleeves are concerned,they come in diff. sizes.Yours just happened to have 0's in there while the next truck might have 1/2 deg. in it.For the record that particular set-up was used in almost all straight axles ever made Chevy until '91,Dodge until around '92,Jeep until around '01-02.