Rockcrawlindude
a rock crawlin’ dude
Good morning fellow Ram enthusiasts. This is a rambling on Ram HD driveway alignment theory. Please feel free to add to the discussion or tell me I’m stupid.
I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve always paid for alignments on anything I’ve owned that was IFS, and I’ve always done my own alignments on anything that was solid axle. Armed with nothing more than an angle finder and a tape measure I have done many driveway alignments. I don’t have a “real” way to measure caster. Usually, I go by pinion angle, eyeball, and how it drives.
I have done solid axle swaps, installed bolt-on long arm kits, weld-on long arm kits, lifts, levels and just about anything in between. So, I’m comfortable with solid axle rigs
let’s assume a level kit or new springs up front and let’s assume no change to the rear. Let’s also assume you had a good alignment before you made changes.
On these trucks, camber is not adjustable and toe would go unchanged. This is due to a knuckle to knuckle tie rod.
So, you would only need to change caster and get the steering wheel centered to complete an alignment.
Thuren has a very detailed write up about alignments on these trucks and they don’t want any cross caster. Meaning, they want both side caster cams to be set the same or close to it. So, let’s just keep them the same. On my truck, they’re the same left and right from the factory.
We don’t need to find the rotational axis of the knuckle on the upper and lower ball joints because that value doesn’t change in relation to the axle tube. so, we don’t need fancy tools.
note: this won’t find your caster angle. This will only find the change to the caster angle
So, without fancy tools you can measure your axles spacial rotational orientation with an angle finder before you start and compare that to after you start. The location of the angle finder on the axle doesn’t matter, as long as it’s consistent between the two measurements. All you need to know is the ° of change. If you throw the caster out by 2° then you just need to fix it 2° In the right direction.
Now the part that gets hairy for me is the steering wheel. Normally this is easy, you just set the wheels straight and adjust the length of the drag link with the steering wheel unlocked until it looks centered. After that, drive it, and see if it’s straight. You can fine tune it until it’s perfect with your eyeballs However, something makes me feel like it’s not that easy on these trucks. I’m assuming they have a sensor that tells them the position of the steering wheel and if the steering wheel is off a little bit, it could potentially throw off the stability or traction control sensors etc.
My question would be about steering wheel position sensors, if any. If the drag link length is not perfect (steering wheel not perfectly centered) how would that impact the truck electronics and nannies?
*Please chime in if you have any knowledge of the steering system and how it works related to changing the drag link length and centering the steering wheel.
also, if you have a jacked up alignment before you start, then none of this helps. You probably need a “professional” job.
obviously I’ve had too much Red Bull this morning.
Cheers
I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve always paid for alignments on anything I’ve owned that was IFS, and I’ve always done my own alignments on anything that was solid axle. Armed with nothing more than an angle finder and a tape measure I have done many driveway alignments. I don’t have a “real” way to measure caster. Usually, I go by pinion angle, eyeball, and how it drives.
I have done solid axle swaps, installed bolt-on long arm kits, weld-on long arm kits, lifts, levels and just about anything in between. So, I’m comfortable with solid axle rigs
let’s assume a level kit or new springs up front and let’s assume no change to the rear. Let’s also assume you had a good alignment before you made changes.
On these trucks, camber is not adjustable and toe would go unchanged. This is due to a knuckle to knuckle tie rod.
So, you would only need to change caster and get the steering wheel centered to complete an alignment.
Thuren has a very detailed write up about alignments on these trucks and they don’t want any cross caster. Meaning, they want both side caster cams to be set the same or close to it. So, let’s just keep them the same. On my truck, they’re the same left and right from the factory.
We don’t need to find the rotational axis of the knuckle on the upper and lower ball joints because that value doesn’t change in relation to the axle tube. so, we don’t need fancy tools.
note: this won’t find your caster angle. This will only find the change to the caster angle
So, without fancy tools you can measure your axles spacial rotational orientation with an angle finder before you start and compare that to after you start. The location of the angle finder on the axle doesn’t matter, as long as it’s consistent between the two measurements. All you need to know is the ° of change. If you throw the caster out by 2° then you just need to fix it 2° In the right direction.
Now the part that gets hairy for me is the steering wheel. Normally this is easy, you just set the wheels straight and adjust the length of the drag link with the steering wheel unlocked until it looks centered. After that, drive it, and see if it’s straight. You can fine tune it until it’s perfect with your eyeballs However, something makes me feel like it’s not that easy on these trucks. I’m assuming they have a sensor that tells them the position of the steering wheel and if the steering wheel is off a little bit, it could potentially throw off the stability or traction control sensors etc.
My question would be about steering wheel position sensors, if any. If the drag link length is not perfect (steering wheel not perfectly centered) how would that impact the truck electronics and nannies?
*Please chime in if you have any knowledge of the steering system and how it works related to changing the drag link length and centering the steering wheel.
also, if you have a jacked up alignment before you start, then none of this helps. You probably need a “professional” job.
obviously I’ve had too much Red Bull this morning.
Cheers
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