1998 P32 Alignment Info

[TakerEasy]

I'm looking for a little info.
1998 P32 16,500# Chassis

Ride height chart (Rear Spring Height.Weight)
Front Shim Chart (Shows what size shims are require to change camber by xx)

And, what do you do when your ride height is good 2.5" between bump stops, but you still have -1 degree Camber and there is not enough stud remaining for adjustment?

[TakerEasy]

I'm looking for a little info.
1998 P32 16,500# Chassis

Ride height chart (Rear Spring Height.Weight)
Front Shim Chart (Shows what size shims are require to change camber by xx)

And, what do you do when your ride height is good 2.5" between bump stops, but you still have -1 degree Camber and there is not enough stud remaining for adjustment?

[Brazels RV Performance]

1/8" shim changes .5 deg,1/16" shim changes .25 and so on.

If you have 2.5" of ride height you should actually have to remove shims to get the camber to .25+ left and 0 right.Uless something is bent or machine is off.Or in some cases the lower Ball joint is for a P30 & not your chassis a P32.

[TakerEasy]

Alignment shop said they could not get it into spec but they did not seem to try very hard. I purchased a castor/camber gauge, leveled my shop floor by using a water level and 1/16" thick shims. I can reproduce the same exact readings as they had so my method seems to be repeatable. Longacre Castor Camber Bubble vail Gauge with Magnetic Hub adapter. Removed wheel bearing Dust cap and stick the gauge on the boss in the center of the hub.

Right Side - Camber is -3/4 degree and Castor is +5 degrees, Ride Height 2-1/4".

Left Side - Camber is -1 degree and Castor is +2.75 degrees, Ride Height 2-1/2".

Checks made:
Made sure the rear axle was absolutely level, and made sure the rear ride height was correct and even. Rear of chassis is level from side to side.

Front of MH Box is level, no good place to see if the chassis on the front is level. New Henderson SuperSteer Springs.

Over all, the rear is 1-1/2" higher than the front. Full of fuel, no water.

Upper and lower A Arms are straight, no signs of bends or damage. Same with the frame rails.

Wheel Bearings are adjusted fine with no slack. A Frame Pivot shaft bushings are good, well greased and no slop or binding. Lower ball joints have no slack and I think they are still rivited in which show no signs of replacement. I double check that.

Lots of shims on the passenger side upper a Frame, hardly any shims on the driver's side.

I know one Upper-A Frame bolt will affect castor way more than it affects camber, while the other will affect camber more than it affects castor. Is it the Front bolt which affects the castor more than camber?

[TakerEasy]

A couple of corrections....
Lower ball joints are pressed in, uppers are rivited.

The wheels are level, so I double checked the rear ride height. Axle tube to frame rail. There was a 1/2" difference. I jacked the left side of the frame up to make the rear ride height exactly the same and checked the frame in several places to make sure it was perfectly level on front and back. Using front, center and rear cross members.

With this, the front ride height is exactly the same. 6" on both sides, steel to steel, or 2.5" rubber to steel.

This caused the drivers side to go to 2 degrees negative camber and the passenger side to -1/4 deg. I have plenty of adjustment on the drivers side so I can fix that. It should have gone to 0 on the passenger side so the wheels my be side loaded some with the ride heigth change.

I "think" what has happened is the previous owner had rear suspension work done. I believe from what I'm seeing is they installed spacers between the leaf spring and axle to level the "box" and not the frame. The passenger side rear has a helper spring while the other side does not. They shimmed the other side up with spacers.

This caused the front to be way out of kilter. Althought I'm still out of bolt on the passenger side, it's much closer to being correct.

This means that I'll have to add approx. 3 or 4 1/8" shims to the drivers side to get the camber back in. At that point both sides will be close to the same, but almost out of thread.

[Brazels RV Performance]

You are correct the lower ball joints are pressed,I wa'nt saying any thing about that.The P32 Lower joint has a much larger shaft & most part stores give you the wrong one when ordered.

[TakerEasy]

On the lower ball joint. Does the smaller shaft P30 ball joint still fit the taper correctly on the P32 Spindle? Because when I changed springs, the tapers were correct and I did have to press them out of the spindle. And of course they pop real good when they unseat.

My assumptions were correct. The Box Mfg. spaced the box higher on the drivers side almost 1/2" higher than the passenger side so the box will sit level. So when the box is level, the frame itself is out of wack causing the ride height to be different. I'm sure they did this to account for the additional weight on that side due to a driver's side slide instead of correcting the springs or distributing weight properly.

Then the spring company added spacers to level the "box".

I have my choices. I can spring the rear so the frame is level and the box is not level and align it and live with it, or I can make the fram level and adjust the box to be level (lots of work), I can split the differnce on the springs so both are only 1/2 off.

I imagine making the frame level is the correct way, or adding longer studs so I can properly align the front end the way it is.

No simple solution. Which would you lean towards, no pun intended?

[Brazels RV Performance]

1/2" out of square will not make that much difference.If you jack up the wheel under the lower control arm near the ball joint & grab the tire top & bottom,there should be zero movement.Another way to tell is if the ball joint cost you 150.00 or more,that's a P32 ball joint.

Now to the adjustments
The rear bolt changes lots of caster & a little camber,the front bolt does the opposite.If you want a huge caster gain remove a rear shim & install it in the front.Give me your camber/caster measurements & I can tell you which one's to move to get you close.Don't forget to let me know what is in there now.

And rough your toe-in at .25" to start with also.

[TakerEasy]

Thanks for the info. Although I had already checked for slack everywhere, as well as the alignment guy, I went ahead and double checked it by Jacking it and checking it as you suggested and yeilded only a few thousands of travel, which is accounted for by the end play in the wheel bearings.

[Brazels RV Performance]

Let me know the caster & camber measurements and i'll let you know which shims to use.

[TakerEasy]

Corrected Readings on Edit-

The drivers side (Left) has lots of thread left. The passenger Side (Right has barely any thread left).

Right Side.
Camber is -3/4 degree and Castor is +5 degrees, Ride Height 2-1/2".

Left Side. Camber is -1 degree and Castor is +2.75 degrees, Ride Height 2-1/4".

Ride Height is gap between rubber bumper and Bump Stop.

[Brazels RV Performance]

Put a 1/16" & 1/8" shim in front & rear on the left side.This should get you close.
On the right pull two 1/8"s form the rear and add one to the front.This may not leave any threads on the forward nut,in this case use red locktite on the threads.Send another message with your new numbers.

[TakerEasy]

Thanks Mike. I'll give it a shot in the next couple of days.

[TakerEasy]

I reinstalled my Henderson SuperSprings in the front and made sure everything was level before I started.

Here are my new readings before touching the alignment.

Right Camber -5/8 Deg. Castor +5.0 Deg.
Left Camber -1 1/2 Deg. Castor +2.0 Deg.

I did the following:
Left Side - Added two 1/8" Shims on Front bolt only.

Right Side - Added One 1/8" + One 1/16" to Front and Rear.

Set Front end down and bounced and rocked several times.

New Readings:
Right Camber +1/2 Deg. Castor +5 1/2 Deg.
Left Camber 0 Deg. Castor +5 Deg.

Looking Closer.
So now, I removed 1/16" from the Front Right and 1/8" from the Back Right. Rechecked.

Final:

Right Camber 0 Deg Castor +6 Deg
Left Camber 0 Deg Castor +5 Deg

Does this look Good?
Tomorrow I'll do the Toe....

Also, I guess I noticed when the Left side was adjusted it helped the right side some. Since the Left Side was so far off and when I pushed the Top A Arm out it also increased the ride height some.

Ride Heigth on the Front is now 2-3/4" both sides, rubber to stop.

I may make an Alignment guy yet huh?

BTW, Center hubs on the P32 are not machined. I noticed 1/4" difference in Camber as I spun the Wheel. That most likely is not going to hurt my readings too much. I made sure the wheels were in the same position each time so it should all be relative, I hope. I need to make a Rim Adapter !!