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Right Steering Drift

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mr wayne

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My 2022 tradesman came with 18" steel wheels and Firestone AT's. 1200 miles on the clock. Noticed a right drift when let go of wheel the day I drove it home. Tire pressure was good. Had new wheels and tires ordered. Figured it was a tire pull. Installed new tires and wheels and drift was still there. No cahnge. Talked to dealership, said it was under warranty to bring it in. They don't do alignments on these trucks. Before bringing it in I had a local shop check the alignment and give me a print out. All within factory specs. Dealership will send it out to 1 of 2 shops so I talked to both to see what their fix would be. One said he would install an offset balljoint. The other said he would crank one of the radial arms on one side. Researching this I find that the 2 radial arms have to be set exactly alike or you get a lean on one side. The after market offset ball joint will not last and will cause other problems soon. Iam not wanting to let someone tear the whole a-frame on that side apart to change a balljoint. Has anyone had this problem? If so what was your fix?
Thanks
 
mr wayne said:
My 2022 tradesman came with 18" steel wheels and Firestone AT's. 1200 miles on the clock. Noticed a right drift when let go of wheel the day I drove it home. Tire pressure was good. Had new wheels and tires ordered. Figured it was a tire pull. Installed new tires and wheels and drift was still there. No cahnge. Talked to dealership, said it was under warranty to bring it in. They don't do alignments on these trucks. Before bringing it in I had a local shop check the alignment and give me a print out. All within factory specs. Dealership will send it out to 1 of 2 shops so I talked to both to see what their fix would be. One said he would install an offset balljoint. The other said he would crank one of the radial arms on one side. Researching this I find that the 2 radial arms have to be set exactly alike or you get a lean on one side. The after market offset ball joint will not last and will cause other problems soon. Iam not wanting to let someone tear the whole a-frame on that side apart to change a balljoint. Has anyone had this problem? If so what was your fix?
Thanks
Click to expand...
4wd? If so go get the specs off of Thuren Fabrication's website

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk
 
Yes it is 4x4. Here is my alignment right now.
 

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mr wayne said:
My 2022 tradesman came with 18" steel wheels and Firestone AT's. 1200 miles on the clock. Noticed a right drift when let go of wheel the day I drove it home. Tire pressure was good. Had new wheels and tires ordered. Figured it was a tire pull. Installed new tires and wheels and drift was still there. No cahnge. Talked to dealership, said it was under warranty to bring it in. They don't do alignments on these trucks. Before bringing it in I had a local shop check the alignment and give me a print out. All within factory specs. Dealership will send it out to 1 of 2 shops so I talked to both to see what their fix would be. One said he would install an offset balljoint. The other said he would crank one of the radial arms on one side. Researching this I find that the 2 radial arms have to be set exactly alike or you get a lean on one side. The after market offset ball joint will not last and will cause other problems soon. Iam not wanting to let someone tear the whole a-frame on that side apart to change a balljoint. Has anyone had this problem? If so what was your fix?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Avoid both these shops.

Thuren specs, sticky on the suspension forum.
 
What should I do about caster? My wheels are +18 offset. Tires are Toyo AT3's, 295/70/18. They stick out about 1 1/2". I will set toe at 0.00.
 
Thuren specs will help. I aligned my Power Wagon, left caster alone because it was nearly identical on both sides and set the total toe to zero. Overall it drives much better but will still follow road crown. Drifts right when the steering wheel is released but if I am on an empty road and go in the other lane it will drift equally left indicating the alignment is fine - just the roads. Tires are wearing perfectly. Just crowned roads, soft Power Wagon suspension and normal steering box slop (which makes centering the steering wheel to my liking a bear....)
 
Mine was out of factory specs from the factory. Didn't realize it until at about 5K miles on the truck I noticed the excessive wear on the tires. I did have a vibration at certain speeds.
Aligned to the thuren specs. .O1 toe, dropped castor down to 3.5 degrees. trucks handles better and rides better. I still have a vibration between 65 and 70. Need to get it to the dealer to see what's up.
 
Crusty old shellback said:
Mine was out of factory specs from the factory. Didn't realize it until at about 5K miles on the truck I noticed the excessive wear on the tires. I did have a vibration at certain speeds.
Aligned to the thuren specs. .O1 toe, dropped castor down to 3.5 degrees. trucks handles better and rides better. I still have a vibration between 65 and 70. Need to get it to the dealer to see what's up.
Click to expand...

Same. Mine had about .15 total toe.
 
cmh2007 said:
On a 2500 4x4? Not possible unless the wheels werent centered or the caster maybe was vastly off

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

You certainly could have toe angles out that far. It would drive like crap and the tires would wear off of it. The difference side to side just means the tech didn’t have the steering set in the centered position when it recorded toe.
 
Yes, that is correct. The Toe was .-.07 on the left and +.39 on the right.

factor specs are .00 to .20 toe at each wheel.

Final numbers were .02 left and .01 right. Close as we could get to 0.

castor was 4.3 left and 4.4 right.
We changed it to 3.4 left and 3.6 right.


Like I said, after about 5K miles, I noticed the outer edge of the tires wearing quickly, hence why I went in to get it aligned. Plus I wanted to change it to the Thuren specs after doing some reading.

No I didn't go to the dealer. I went to a tire shop where I'e know the mechanics for years and trust them. The alignment guy and myself discussed the alignment specs and we worked together to get the numbers where they are. The steering was centered when the numbers were taken.
 
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