Hey guys. I have an 84 f150 4X4. About 6 months ago I had the tie rod ends replaced in order to pass inspection (NY). I really needed the truck on the road and I figured I probably did need them. The mechanic informed me that the their garage was not equipped to do the final allignment, and told me to go somewhere else to get the front end alligned or I'll wear my tires fast; and he was right. When i think about it now I realize what an idiot I was for paying someone to do half of a job for me. So I'll take all the flack for being a dumb*ss but still ask you guys my question. The top of each front tire comes out noticably farther than the bottom. In other words, if you are looking at the hub cap, the top of the tires comes out towards you. As you can imagine, the outer part of the tread is starting to wear. Can this be adjusted closer to normal by adjusting the tie rod ends, or have I done too much harm? As usual, $$$ is the reson why this wasn't taken care of. What little I have will go to a new heater core that I just blew this morning (winter is a-coming). I'm just looking to get the tires as normal as I can until I can afford to do more. Thanks in advance,
Tom

 

Tom, sorry to say, the tie rod ends won't help with this. If you have adjustable ball joints, this is where the adjustment needs to be done. If not, then you may have to have them installed to correct this, as you have already noticed, the top needs pulled in and this is the only way to do that (that I know of-sorry not that "up" on IFS/TTB so I could be wrong here). These are usually off center ball joints that move in or out as rotated. I don't know about your front end, but on my '79 4x4, I found camber plates to put on behind the spindle that can correct up to 2-3 degrees, don't know if something like this would work for you or not. One other benifit of having this corrected would be better handling with less tendancy to bump steer although return to center may be slowed down just a little bit.

 

Thanks Chuck. It seems that the best thing to do is replace those ball joints, and get everything alligned up right. I should be able to get some help/advice from an old mechanic friend of mine. If not I'll be sure to seek you guys for advice on getting those suckers out and putting in new ones as that I have never done this before. Thanks again for your time.

 

hflu
what you just described with your truck is that it has too much
positive camber, positive camber is the top of the tire (when looking from the front of the truck), sticking out, and negative
camber is top of tire sticking inwards, the way to correct this
is too install a different degreed camber bushing, which is located at the upper ball joint,right below the ball joint nut, they do sell adjustable camber bushing
if you prefer them instead... you need to take your truck to a
reliable alinement shop, capable of alining ford ttb frontends
also you might want to replace your ball joints if you haven't
done so, your truck being an 84, ball joints close to 20 years.
anyways just my 2 cents. good luck.

 

Thanks for the short and sweet lesson on how to correct alignment on TTB's Mic, I knew of the adjustable ball joints from a few of the guys I wheel with, but they all have lifts and that seemed to be what they (had to?) switch to. Now I have a question though, I would venture to guess that it may make "maintenance" alignments easier with this style as opposed to having an assortment of bushings around? As I said, I'm not that "up" on TTB's as I have a solid axle up front. However I'm sure the day will come when I will end up with 4x that has the TTB and this does seem to be an "issue" with just about all of them! Thanks again for the info!

 

Thanks for the info mic. I'll look into the adjustable camber bushings. If I buy replacement ball joints, do they come with adjustable camber bushings, or are those something I should get and install with the new ball joints? Thanks again for the reply
Tom