The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Front End Alignment Specs

Does anyone know the spec for a 1950 Chevy 3100 front end, toe-in, caster, and camber. It is all original expect I installed modern tie rod ends? Taking it in for an alignment next week and I need the specs.

From the Service Manual
Caster (degrees) - 1-3/4 +/- 1/2
Camber (degrees) - 1 +/- 1/2
Kingpin Inclination (degrees) - 7d 10' +/-1d
Toe-in 1/16"-3/16"
Toe-out on turns:
Outside Wheel (degrees) 20
Inside wheel (degrees) 23 +/-2

Finding a shop that's equipped to bend and/or twist a stovebolt axle to get the right settings will be a challenge. Unless your alignment tech has been drawing Social Security for a while, he's probably never heard of doing that, let alone ever done it successfully. Good luck!
Jerry

GM Heratage Center, info packets for the 1950 truck will have all the information you need.

https://www.gm.com/heritage/archive/vehicle-information-kits

Unless the vehicle has been in an accident bad enough to bend the axle, the stuff like camber caster or kingpin inclination out of spec between sides likely wouldn't be an issue. Overall caster can be dealt with by shims. Toe-out on turns might need the spindle arms being tweaked a bit, but again, unless those have been bent over the years, they should be OK.

Things must have changed pretty radically since the 1950s and 60s when Dad's business partner who also did the wheel alignment and frame straightening bent several axles a week to bring them into factory specs. Of course, he also made about1/2 degree difference in caster settings from side to side to compensate for road crown. That can't be done with shims.
Jerry

Roads and tires have improved dramatically since then so I imagine there's a lot less chance for steering components to get really far out of wack.

Have you checked for play in the kingpins?
Are your leaf spring pins and bushings loose?
Is your steering box adjusted properly?
Are your caster shims in place?
All of these items need to be addressed before an alignment can be done.
An alignment shop who is capable of aligning your truck should already know this and can check all of that for you.
The problem is, there aren't many shops left who know these trucks.

The only alignment which we can do is toe in. If camber, or kingpin inclination is out of spec, your best bet is to find an axle which hasn't been bent in an accident.

It's been a long time since I worked in a big truck shop but we did a lot of axle bending for alignment purposes. Some trucks had been wrecked and some were misaligned from the factory.

Find a big truck shop willing to work on your little truck axle. Modern trucks still have straight axles so I'm betting they are still aligned with shims and Port-a-powers and chains. Oh yes, and heat. Also remember that the arch of your front springs and the load on them will affect caster.

Just to be clear, the caster and camber can be adjusted with shims? Or is bending required?

Caster can be altered with caster shims, camber is an angle of the combination of king pin inclination and spindle angle, the camber by itself can be adjusted by bending the axle, if the spindle angle is off (bent spindle), the spindle has to be replaced.

If your truck is stock, the stock shims should be there between the axle and the leaf springs. They are thicker at one end than the other. That establishes your caster angle. If they are there, nothing further needs to be checked.

Caster is adjusted with shims, camber by bending.

The toe in specs are for bias tires. If you are running radials, you will want almost zero toe in.

Can I respectfully ask for the reasoning behind this? Is this something which you have discovered, or are there any other sources to support this?

I think it's because radial tires naturally track straighter than bias plies. Most modern radial specs require almost zero toe or maybe 1/32".

Bias ply tend to follow imperfections in the road and want to push outward while driving so toe-in helps keep the car in a straight line by countering this.

I have been running a fleet of trucks for many years. There was much written about the subject in trade journals around 40 years ago when fleets began switching from bias to radial We run almost zero toe in on our trucks now.