Stuck in Winnipeg. Suspension issues
 

I did my kingpins a while back when my front wheels were cantered out a lot. I thought I had fixed all of it, but not that I put on a few thousand miles, the front wheels are back to cantering again. We cinched up and repacked the bearing, and tighted up the kingpin anchor wedges, and that helped A LOT.

However, It still canters out, and it appears my springs are just too weak. I'm trying to rig up a way to keep driving this van without it getting way out of wack.

I'm hoping to install a spacer between the i-beam and the coil spring receiver. I'm hoping to find a stack of 1.25" ID bushings or grade-8 washers, then situate them around the top nut on the i-beam connection bolt. The bolt is probably 8 inches tall, so i have room to put the spacer in.

We even thought about drilling a 1.25" hole in a hockey puck, but we are worried the hockey puck will lose it's structural integrity with a hole that big. Originally, we thought the hole in the puck would only have to be 5/8" to fit around the 8-inch bolt, but then we remembered under the "hat" washer was a 1-1/8" nut that we have to fit around. IDK. I'm just trying to figure out ideas. We even bought some of those awful coil spacers from Canadian Tire, but none of them fit around my coils.

What model truck/van? 2WD or 4x4?

"Canter" doesn't mean much here (it's actually a horse gait...). Are you experiencing an issue with caster, camber or toe?

Oh, sounds like a 2WD truck, and it's camber. Perhaps your springs are just worn and are compressing too much while at "rest"? :confused:

At least it is not oil cooler this year. Have you got what you need to change the springs?

I've got a 2wd van.

To change the springs, we don't need a compressor. They come out easy once you drop the i-beam and radius arm. The hard part is breaking the top screw loose, but I don't plan to change out the springs regardless. Everything is closed up for Canada Day. We are kinda looking more for a place to work on this van, so if anyone on the forum has a driveway in Winnipeg that we could use to wrench on this, that would be amazing.

After assessing our situation and learning that nothing will be open until Monday, we are thinking of drilling a 1" hole in a hockey puck, then putting it on the ibeam to separate it a little and give us a little space. IDK. It's a quick idea that is simple and hopefully gets us back on the road.

Currently it looks like this:
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...b7b3d09eec.jpg

And our plan is to try this:


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...7a3bdd09e1.jpg


Our i-beam bolt is long enough for us to put the puck in and still have enough threads to tighten the top nut.


But somehow we have to convince the hotel parking lot people that we are just "changing a tire" so they don't get pissy at us. Or we just find a friendly IDI FTE member to let us work on the van in their driveway... :)

Something strangely appropriate about using a hockey puck as a "field repair" in Canada.....

I know. It was a brilliantly appropriate solution to our current situation.


Well, we cored out a few hockey pucks and installed them on top of the i-beams. Not a hard fix really. The wheels sat more vertically, also the body sat many inches above the wheel. Then we drove it around and it felt better. We parked it after dinking around Winnipeg, and checked out the alignment. The body settled (as expected) and then we checked the camber. It still has a moderate positive camber, but it's a lot better than last night. It's still disconcerting, and we have to decide if we want to gamble on the hockey pucks up north, or wait until Monday to for the NAPA Main in the Peg to open at 10am. They MAY have the "severe duty" springs there, but who knows. Another option is to buy a longer i-beam bolt, then insert two pucks or one puck with an array of stacked Grade 8 washers.

being stuck in the Peg for the 150th Canada Day is not really much of a bad thing... the show downtown is supposed to be pretty tight. Just hoping for some Severe Duty springs in stock early tomorrow.

Here is the Napa part # NCP 2775389

Have you gone to the website to order them and pick up in store?
https://www.napacanada.com/en/search...=vehicleAdd://

I saw that. I wanted to order it, but the NAPA's are all closed tomorrow except the "Main" store, and when I clicked order for pickup, it said I had to call them cuz it wasn't in stock. I called, but since it was Canada Day, no one picked up the phone.

So I gotta wait until 10am tomorrow, and I figured I would just drive it to their store and talk to them in person. Being in the only real city in a 1000km radius, I'd hope their Manitoba area warehouse would have a heavy duty set of springs within a same-day delivery. Aside from the top spring retention bolt, a spring swap would be really easy to do.

But if they can't get the springs to us same-day, then we are considering putting in some coil spacers and just driving it. Within a thousand miles, we will have 500-1000 less pounds in the van, which might help the sagging issue on its own.

Before long you will have a brand new 1988 van. Can you any weight to the back ?

We already moved all the major weight to the back, but we have about 3000 lbs of stuff in the back, so not much room. But it'll free up in 500 miles. Kind of a gamble. drive more into the woods in the hopes that the wonkey camber will releave itself.....

And if it does not you stand a chance of wearing the edge of the tires. If it were me I would see if I could get the springs before heading into the woods

Well crap. Some parts stores say it will take a week to get coil springs to Winnipeg.

Anyone know a powerstroke or other heavy duty alternative to the coils springs for an IDI van?