Your Raptor and It's Alignment

[Dan06]

I went back and read the whole thread, guess I was bored, lol. Pirate Air great writeup! Lots of good stuff.

Idk if y'all will care, but I had a mnemonic saying to remember the differences between caster, camber, and toe earlier in my life. I still find it amusing, so thought I'd share.

Camber:
*Negative - Some clingy chick leaning all over your. Drop the C in Camber and Amber is clingy chick.

*Positive - The opposite, she ain't leaning on you any more

Caster
*Positive - reaching back for the a$$. I hear "that" word in the word Ca-A$$-Ter, so that was a simple connection.

*Negative - Ain't getting that a$$

Toe - This ones easy. Toe-in like pigeon toed and Toe-out the opposite.

 

[SvtDon]

So what your saying is my truck is jacked? Lol. Sweet!

Time to order a 2014! Haha at last someone else says mid perch Calvin! Been telling ya that for months now son!

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Big Blue]

They said what would be the point of a cam kit if this is already maxed out? They said it wouldn't make it go in any further.

Looks like your on top perch?

 

[pirate air]

I go off roading every now and then, not to hardcore. Yes they wore on the inside BAD.

What I would do, drop it to mid and see if you can get the camber under control. If not, something is bent. If you can get it under control and want to go back to top perch, Id start saving for some new upper adjustable control arms.


It's just weird you can't get camber a little better even at top perch. It's normal to loose positive caster when correcting exsess negative camber at top perch, but to be all the way sucked in and still have a degree and a half of negative camber on one side..

I went back and read the whole thread, guess I was bored, lol. Pirate Air great writeup! Lots of good stuff.

Idk if y'all will care, but I had a mnemonic saying to remember the differences between caster, camber, and toe earlier in my life. I still find it amusing, so thought I'd share.

Camber:
*Negative - Some clingy chick leaning all over your. Drop the C in Camber and Amber is clingy chick.

*Positive - The opposite, she ain't leaning on you any more

Caster
*Positive - reaching back for the a$$. I hear "that" word in the word Ca-A$$-Ter, so that was a simple connection.

*Negative - Ain't getting that a$$

Toe - This ones easy. Toe-in like pigeon toed and Toe-out the opposite.

Lol, yeah the above works to remember too.
I dunno how many people even read the initial post. I figure most people look at the size and say **** reading all that! I look back and think, damn my truck was young in those days.

 

[ktm505sx]

To much info for only a couple of simple numbers

 

[pirate air]

To much info for only a couple of simple numbers

Thanks for your valuable opinion. I'll keep this in mind just for you.

 

[AZEngineer]

I took the truck to the body shop and they started by trying to align it. They were able to get close but not right and so they concluded something is bent from the accident. They believe it's the drivers sider rear spring so a replacement National spring will be ordered Monday. Here is the print from the alignment the body shop did.

Need some help from the experts here. I just had Fox 3.0 coil overs installed in the front. The preload raised the front about 1.5". I had the shop that put the shocks in also install two alignment shim kits from SDHQ.

Also, my daughter was in a hit and run accident with the Raptor (posted a month ago). Just ruined a tire, scratched the wheel and scraped the rim. A quick check of the frame and rear end by the body shop said no frame or rear damage. But look at the toe for the rear. the alignment guy says those numbers say something is bent. I will drop it off for a computerized frame measurement Monday to know for sure.

Took it to a shop with the new Hunter Hawkeye system. The alignment guy had 30 years of experience and seemed to know his stuff. He was not able to get it aligned, can't adjust enough to get the passenger Caster right. On the Drivers Side lower control arm, the rear bolt and cam are as far to the passenger side as possible and the front bolt is about in the middle of the slot. On the passenger side lower control arm the rear bolt is as far to the passenger side as possible and it's not enough. Here are my numbers.



The alignment guy said the shim kit is crap. Good shim kits move the head of the bolt and the nut of the bolt together. He had shim kits like this for Chevy and others like Titans have them built in apparently. He said Ford doesn't and it's a bitch to align. Is this true?

Anyone else have the weird shift everything to one side of the truck alignment results?

Also I'm not happy with the handling with these numbers. The truck stock has nice quick turn-in and now it doesn't. What number do I want to get that feel back?

 

[Desmo_Pilot]

First of all, thanks for your time.

On the drivers side lower control arm, the rear bolt is set all the way towards the chassis. The front bolt is about in the middle of the range.

On the passenger side lower control arm, the rear bolt is all the way away from the chassis and the front bolt is about in the middle.

The tech at the alignment shop seemed very competent and the machine was very new.

That said either the machine is out of whack or something is bent.

A bit more info, before the crash the truck drove perfectly and the steering wheel was perfectly centered. After the crash the truck drove perfectly but the steering wheel was no longer perfectly centered, maybe 5 degrees off, say 355 degrees if looking at a compass. Post today's alignment it no longer turns in crisply and it feels sloppy. It does track straight down the road with no drift but it's not handling like a Raptor should.

I will visually inspect the knuckles tomorrow and use some precision measuring tools I have to see if I can measure anything. Monday I'll have more data from the frame machine.

My money is that the tech isn't familiar with doing Fords. I went through similar issue at at alignment shop with two techs with 20 plus years of "experience". I gave up after they tried three times. Took it to another shop I had previously used for my performance cars. They knew exactly what to do and the truck is perfect now.
Since you are in Phoenix, I would recommend the shop I went to.

PM me and I will send you their info.

 

[AZEngineer]

More on the truck that was in a hit and run.

The body shop is pulling the drivers side spring to have it checked by a local spring fabricator. The local spring fabricator says it's 99.9% likely the spring is fine, and if not it would be the loop where it mounts to the truck and they can straighten that. The spring shop says if anything it would be the bolt being bent. Seems if the bolt is bend the spring would have to be bent too. Should know on the spring check tomorrow.

 

[AZEngineer]

Here is another update. The body shop removed the drivers side spring and checked, it's not bent. The loosened everything in the back and retightened and they say it's now in alignment. (I'd love to understand how a solid rear axle has toe and camber other than 0.00. Is it tolerances in the housing?)

I would like to know what the experts think of these latest numbers.