The Green Farmer is a '69 C-10 Stepside, bare bones, 6cyl, no power nothing. Before this, it drove just fine, straight down the road (but tons of slop in the system, hence the need for a rebuild), and returned to straight after turns.
I just had the front end rebuilt (all new control arm bushings, ball joints and tie rod ends) and had them add a power steering kit (not sure which kit yet, basically a stock pump and rebuilt box). The numbskulls at the local Firestone (where the shop took it for alignment) sent it back in undriveable condition. If you took your eye off the road for a nanosecond, you'd veer one way or another. A slight move of the wheel resulted in the truck taking off in that direction even more than commanded. Nearly hit a curb in the 200yds I went before returning it to the shop. I can't believe anyone test drove this and thought that was acceptable, but they did. I recognized this was some combination of negative caster or toe out.The alignment sheets they sent verified almost zero caster.
I've searched the interwebs and here but haven't found conclusive procedure (order of what to do first) on setting the alignment. My summary of what I find combined with my (feeble) brain and knowledge of geometry is:
Truck on level ground, check and adjust ride height as needed.
Set Camber
Set Caster
Set Toe
Recheck all of the above.
To adjust camber, add shims both front and rear of the top control arm for adding (more positive) camber, fewer for reducing (more negative). If you have removed the last shim and still not in spec, can add to the lower arm as needed.
To adjust caster, add shims in front and none (or remove) in rear to add positive caster, opposite for reducing caster.
Am I missing something?
As an aside, spoke with the Firestone manager who stated when adjusting the camber caster that whatever you did to the front shims you had to do to the rear - pretty sure that identified my problem right there, no?
Last edited by The Green Farmer; 01/08/2020 2:17 PM.
