Community Forums

jlwardn · 05-16-2017, 09:22 AM

I just had a local shop install Helwig front sway bar and do an alignment.
I told him I wanted to see camber settings of 5.5.
I just got the vehicle back and he adjusted the left to 7.0 and the right to 6.5. What are your thoughts on this.

He charged me for the Alignment $65 and labor to install the bushings $130 and the bushing parts $65. The total for that was $260? Seems steep.
And my steering wheel is still off and aimed at 10 oclock....

He charged me $100 to install the sway bar.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

LJowdy · 05-16-2017, 09:33 AM

Camber measures the amount of distance (usually in degree's) that the top of tire is tipped either in towards the center of the vehicle (Negative Camber) and out towards the street (Positive Camber) Not sure what vehicle you had aligned but those measurements seem awfully excessive. (Most race cars on a road course may have 2 to 3 degree's of negative camber.)

Maybe you have caster and camber confused. Caster measures the distance from center line of the suspension to the center of the wheel. More caster the quicker the steering wheel self centers after taking a corner and also more force is required to make that turn or when parking. (You can see caster at work every time you get a shopping cart at the grocery store. Look at the wheels on the front and you'll see that they're set back when going straight. This allows the wheels to turn and self center.)

The steering wheel centering process is down with the tie rods, you loosen one and tighten the other and during that process you keep track on the toe-in which measures how much your tires point towards the center of the vehicle. Usually 1/8" to 1/4" total (In other words, if your setting is 1/8" then each tire points in 1/16th of an inch for a total of 1/8")

Harvard · 05-16-2017, 09:36 AM

OP really meant to say caster and having over + 6 degrees is good, much better then the +3 degrees that Ford ships with the cutaways.

jlwardn · 05-16-2017, 09:53 AM

I told him Caster but on the Invoice he wrote camber and camber bushings.
So that is why I stated in my post was he did. Not sure if he screwed up his wording or his work.

jlwardn · 05-16-2017, 10:01 AM

I just called him for clarification and he said the Invoice was written quick and not well.
He adjusted the Caster 7.0 on Left side and 6.5 on Right
He adjusted Camber .5 negative on Right and 0+ on Left
Prices are as listed above

LJowdy · 05-16-2017, 10:28 AM

That's more like it. The increased caster on the left side is to compensate for the crown in the road.

youracman · 05-16-2017, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LJowdy

That's more like it. The increased caster on the left side is to compensate for the crown in the road.

I recently had a large Denver Ford truck dealer install Ingalls Adjustable Bushings in my E450 (they didn't have them....but agreed to install my parts). The reason for the Ingalls was to ensure that I got at least 5 degrees positive caster (in accordance with Harvey's suggestion.....on many RV threads.) They worked on it for a little over 3 hours including a road test and my bill was $283 out the door.

One thing seems "odd". I ended up with RF: 5 deg + LF: 4.7 deg +
Asked the alignment guy if that was "lead" and he said "Yes.....for the crown in the road" !!!! Hmmmmm.

Anyway the rig drives a TON better. One poster earlier said the vastly improved handling probably resulted from correcting a "toed out" condition to "in-spec toe-in" ........ as much as the healthy dose of positive caster. Whatever.....the big trucks bow wave effect is only a minor irritation now ...... not white-knuckle time.

Safe travels............ Ed S in Denver

Harvard · 05-17-2017, 08:08 AM

QUPTE:
"One thing seems "odd". I ended up with RF: 5 deg + LF: 4.7 deg +
Asked the alignment guy if that was "lead" and he said "Yes.....for the crown in the road" !!!! Hmmmmm."

This is correct LH - RH caster is always a negative (Cross Caster = 4.7 - 5.0 = -0.3) which accounts for road crown.

jelag · 05-17-2017, 11:14 PM

Camber is the inward and outward tilt of the King Pin at the top for those of us who understand straight axles.. inward is minus and outward is positive.. in alignment terms the farther from zero the more the tire will wear... as its tilted in or out...

Caster is the forward or rearward tilt of the King Pin at the top... again, forward is negative and rearward is positive... Caster IS NOT a tire wear angle.. and the more positive caster, the faster the steering wheel will return to forward (straight ahead) and will track better....

Someone above commented that changing the caster from +3 to +6 will in fact help in keeping it under control and going straight ahead...

In all the years I've been around cars/trucks I don't think I've seen a CAMBER specification much above maybe 1* or so... as the farther out from zero that angle is.. the more rapid the tire wear will be... Hopefully your technician stated CAMBER and really meant CASTER... but I can't imagine a really good tech making that written mistake...

Best of luck on this...

LJowdy · 05-18-2017, 10:22 PM

Jelag, We've already gone over what the terminology means and the technician stated that he made an error listing Caster Spec's and Camber Specs. All of this is on the first page of this thread.