Well I just got my new tires mounted the other day (40 inchers)....and I finally found a place with a big enough device to do my alignment.

I dropped her off and received a phone call saying that my driver side ball joints are out and they can't continue until replaced - so I told them I would change them tomorrow. They also mentioned something a bout putting on a camber kit....Has anyone here put a camber kit on their truck?! Do I need it?

I've put one on my Honda after lowering it, but never heard of doing it on a truck...They told me that they can't determine whether I will need them or not until I put the new balljoints in (which I will do tomorrow).

help guys... heres the invoice (sorry if its too big):

 

I think they put this on my truck. It goes on the top ball joint I think, where the bolt comes though the spindle. When I did my ball joints and then took it in for alingment they said I put it in backwards. So I got charged for them to move it or something. Some kind of BS story I figured, but whatever. Maybe Dan can elaborate on this some for us.

 

The bolt is off set to allow for bad camber.(top ball joint). Sometimes it looks like they will need to be replaced with an offset, but most cases a stock setting is good enough .
While you are under there get someone to turn the steering left and right and check track bar, and both link bars etc. you will be amazed at how bad things get.
Cheers Derek

 

Look at your avatar and you will see why you need to put in a camber kit.

 

Hmm, maybe I should put one of these on tomorrow.... do you guys know if they sell them at autozone or checker?

 

I am not sure where he bought the kit for my truck. I would more think NAPA rather than autozone.

 

I think that in this instance, you should not need it. Camber kits are really never used on solid axle vehicles. The allignment shop should know this. Camber kits were really common on the pre-99 trucks that had the twin I beam suspension. When you lifted the trucks, the center pivot may or may not have been dropped the exact same amount as your lift, thus messing up the camber. In most instances, the center brackets are either not dropped at all, or not enough, because on these trucks, it is difficult to make center drop brackets that are strong enough to take the strain from the suspension. What resulted was in many vehicles was a situation where there was a lot of positive camber, or the bottom of the tires were closer together than the top, and this is for the most part, the opposite of what you want. The way they fixed this was to install a "camber" kit that consisted of replacement center pivot bushings and a new top camber bushing. Normal pivot bushings had the hole in the middle, but the bushings in a camber kit would have the hole in the bushing off to one side so that if properly installed, it would slide that traction beam further to the outside of the vehicle. Combine that with a new camber bushing that goes around the upper ball joint, and it was possible to return the vehicle to nearly the original settings.

The same thing happens on IFS chebbys that have an A-arm suspension system. The bottom a-arm is longer than the top a-arm, so if you vary much at all from the stock ride height, your camber is all messed up and the only way to easily fix it is to put in bushings with adjustments in them.

On an 02 ford, the truck uses a solid axle, and even if you lifted it 3 feet or lowered it till the frame rubs, the camber would not change(provided it is a 4x4) since all you are doing is moving the front axle straight up, or straight down. The 2wheel drive trucks would have issues if you lifted them, since they still use the TTB setup, but nobody does much of that so I don't even know if they make a camber kit for them. The most they should have to do on your truck is maybe change the adjustment bushing around the upper ball joint to giv you a little more negative caster if your truck feels to "floaty" with those fortys on it. I doubt they should have to do anything. Either way, it should not be more that $30.00 per side for the adjuster bushing.

 

Exactly. The ONLY way you'd need to correct the camber on a solid front axle (since they are set at the factory) is if you have a bent axle tube.

If you do need to correct camber (which is possible...my brother's needs to be corrected but he's got bad ball-joints, too) then there is a replaceable sleeve that goes in the upper knuckle pivot hole in the axle housing that moves the ball joint stud in or out (or front to back for caster).

 

That is what I needed to have installed. I guess it was caster and not camber.

 

Awesome thanks for the info miker and cleatus. They were actually going to charge me $659 bucks for the ball joints - I acually just did them this morning, and everything went well. Then I found where they adjust the camber (which I never knew):

Right through the top of the knuckle where the upper ball joint is bolted through - there is a "plug" that fits right down into the knuckle that looks like this: http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=MOG%2DK8978&N=700 +4294908331+4294907918+4294924642+4294846096+115&a utoview=sku
And over the top of it- it read "0 - 0.5*" or something simillar.

I have an appoitment tomorrow at 10am at the same place (only place that does it for this big of a vehicle) - and I pray that I don't have to adjust the camber - because I don't really feel like replacing those plugs on both sides with adequate ones - but like you guys said (and I agree), its a straigt axle - and there SHOULD be nothing wrong with the camber, but I guess I will see tomorrow.

 

Good luck and let us know what they say.

 

Hohnestly, THEY should be the ones to replace them, and it should be part of the cost of the alignment. Trust me, they are gonna take yours and stick them into somebody elses rig that needs that particular setting. That is just part of the adjustment, and adjusting things is what an aligment is. When you say they are the only place that can take a truck that big, do you mean by the tires, or by the size of the rig itself. I ask because computer alignment places remove the tires anyway sooooooooooooo 40 inch tires shouldn't make a difference if they can do a normal superduty.

 

yea I hear you pal, Ill see what they say about the camber, but if they charge an arm and a leg, I'll do it myself and bring it back in...

As for the truck, the first place I tried was brakes plus - and they said the truck itself was too big to fit on the lift or some crap like that (I gave them the specs - f250 short bed 4 dr). So then I brought it to one of the local Network Alignment and Brakes, they said they can't do it because my tire offset is too big for the machine to calibrate (or something similar to that). So then they recommended the other Network Alignment out in Apache Junction (45 min away) - and these are the guys that im dealin with now - they said something like their "wires" are long enough to align it with???

Anyways, Ill keep you guys posted.

 

I take my truck to the local Goodyear store where they align the semis. My truck is a cc lb dually and wont fit on the racks around town, or the people just dont know how to align a dually. I did argue with one place and they pulled it on the lift and it did end up being too long for their lift. Never seen anyplace remove the tires though.

 

Agreed. I do at least 6-7 alignments a week here and I've never taken off the tires to check a vehicle out. Sometimes it is necessary to remove the wheels to perform adjustments, but the wheels always go back on when the "heads" are in use.

Don't try to take out the bushings yourself, either. Most times it requires lots of 4-letter words and an air hammer to hammer them out of the axle "C".