Alignment issues

[Chad Merry]

Here is the situation.

I just put the superlift lift kit on. Went to get it aligned and they cannot get my steering wheel straight. On the machine it says it is straight and everything is great. But when they take it off the lift and we drive it around the corner and the stering wheel is turned to left again. Had 3 different guys look at it and they are all stumped.



Anyone ever seen or heard of this before? Is there something in the steering I should look at?

The shop refuned my money even though they fixed all the other alignment issues.



Thanks,

Chad

 

[Todd Z]

Try rotating your tires, or switch the front tires from left to right and right to left...



Sounds like a tire pull....



Also the camber is ok ???



did you install a camber kit ???



Todd Z

 

[Dreman]

Are you talking about steering PULL or is the steering wheel just turned to the left even if you are going straight with your hands off the wheel?

 

[Chad Merry]

Camber is good, actually everything is good. No pulling to the right or left just my steering wheel is turned to the left.



I dont get it. :wacko:

 

[Todd Z]

then they need to do a proper steering wheel center alignment...



or align the truck with the steering wheel down to the RIGHT a little and see what that does..



Todd Z

 

[EddieS'04]

Are they using a locking bar to lock the steering wheel level. This has to be done when setting the toe-in.

 

[Chad Merry]

They used the lock bar for the steering wheel.

 

[EddieS'04]

Maybe what Todd said, about realigning with steering wheel to the right will work. I had an '88 T-bird that had to be done that way, after I lowered it

 

[Hal S]

Steering wheel position is set by the toe and if the thrust angle is ok there is no reason that the steering wheel position should not be centered.

I've got to question the competency of the shop.

 

[user 62851]

ahh, just make it easier, pull the steering wheel off, and turn alil to the right and put it back on. wam bam thank you ma'am, its fixed lol

 

[Todd Z]

shvdnlayd



Will not work on the ST...... the steering wheel and colum have a notch that will not allow you to do that...



Todd Z

 

[Mike Wilson]

Chad,



This may be the situation. I have seen this before on completely modified/

rebuilt front ends before. You may have one tie rod threaded way into the rack

sleeve, and the other just barely in there. Count the number of threads each

side is threaded in there. They should be close to each other in the distance that

they are threaded in each side.



Sorry for the crude drawing, but it might help illustrate my point (in the circles):

[Broken External Image]:



Hope this helps, if you can read it!

 

[Dreman]

That's the way to fix it. You have to turn the tie rod in on one side and turn it out on the other. I'm surprised that the alignment shop didn't know to do that. Wait, you didn't take it to a DEALERSHIP did you? That might explain it!

 

[Chad Merry]

I will take a look at the tie rods ends. The guy that was working on it said he had done modified trucks before. And he was really confused as to why when the truck was on the rack he could get everything in spec. But as soon as he sat in the ST and started it, it went out of spec, and the wheel went back to where it was.



He was adjusting both tie rods together, they let me into the shop to watch.



Thanks for the replies everyone,

Chad