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Front end alignment really this bad?

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reece13

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So I just put new ball joints and wheel bearings in my K5. It still has the 10 bolt up front. After installation was done, it pulls crazy to the right now. I went to my local alignment guy who deals with lifted trucks and he explained to me that they put "cosmo shims" behind the spindle to get everything back right. This doesn't make sense. Hes basically saying that I have to pull it all apart again once I see how out of whack it is and THEN shim it and re-put everything back together.:confused: Does this sound right or is there a different way to get my front alignment???? oh and by the way my truck is lifted about 8 inches with 37s but its street driven alot
 
Something went back together wrong. If it wasn't pulling before, swapping out those items should not change the alignment. Unless the old stuff was soo bad it self aligned?

I've done those swaps a number of times. Just checked the toe and was good to go.
 
Based on my experience, I second that. Did one side one year, next year did the other. Put it back together per the factory manual, no change in alignment. Straight before, straight after. Same alignment for 10+ years.
 
The spindle shims can help with camber angle but are not often used. Generally on these straight axle trucks the wheels are straight up & down and that's that. (You can also get eccentric castle nuts for the ball joints to adjust this, but again that's a specialty thing.) In short, it doesn't sound like an alignment issue.

Are the ONLY things changed the wheel bearings and ball joints? Did you rotate the tires or change anything else?

I'm wondering if the spindle nuts on one side are waaay tighter than the other, or maybe one caliper is sticky? If you have access to an infrared thermometer, do a short drive and see if one rotor is way hotter than the other.

-- A
 
Sounds like something didn't go in correct to me as well. Make sure both sides ball joints are bottomed out into the knuckle and that you didn't over tighten the wheel bearings. There is a preload shim with 4 slots in it that goes into the upper ball joint slot but unless you bought the special ones with a offset it should still be centered across the knuckle. Is your steering wheel off or the wheels look tilted up front? Is it possible you didn't bottom out the bearing races in the hub far enough? If you didn't mess with the tie rod ends and steering was fine before your toe in should have stayed the same. A quick measurement would be to take a tape measure and measure the front of the tire and the back of the front tires across under the truck. The front should be in about 1/8-1/4 of inch shorter than the rear of tire to track strait and return to center correct after a turn.
 
Everything went back together as normal. Ball joints are set up right, bearings installed/tightened properly. I did notice that the tierod end had a a little looseness to it, when dropping it out of the way. Could that be the problem?
 
A "cosmo" shim is the name brand of the spindle shim the alignment shop used to correct camber. I had never heard of it before either.
 
That makes more sence then. I thought they were talking a specific type of shim. Not a brand name. That still doesn't sound like your problem. Did you check the toe in and is your steering wheel and gearbox still centered. Definitely weird.
 
I've seen the spindle shims before. Most alignment shops don't even bother and just do caster/toe in because there is no real adjustment for camber. That's where the spindle shim comes in... or the ball joint fitting...

Sounds like he is really good at what he does. How does it drive?
 
It drives like a dream now. I pretty much had him look at everything possible that could be causing the problem. They installed the shim and it's drives straight as an arrow. They did an alignment and checked caster/camber. After he was done, he told me everything else looked/functioned good other than the draglink ends being a little worn out (which I already knew). He said the balljoints/bearings were all in properly.
 
reece13 said:
It drives like a dream now. I pretty much had him look at everything possible that could be causing the problem. They installed the shim and it's drives straight as an arrow. They did an alignment and checked caster/camber. After he was done, he told me everything else looked/functioned good other than the draglink ends being a little worn out (which I already knew). He said the balljoints/bearings were all in properly.
Click to expand...

Glad you got it figured out. Sometimes a professionals second look is all that's needed.
 
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