Gen 2.5 alignment issues - Caster

red97rum

New member
Hi there, hope everyone is well! I recently bought a new set (new to me from a fellow Montero owner) of wheels/tires for my rig, tires are 305/70/16s. The torsion bars required a bit of cranking in order to lift the front, along with slight trimming of the bumper corners and a little massaging with a hammer to the inner portions of the wheel wells/fenders. Nothing too horrible and you really don't notice it anyway, but of course, that messed the alignment all up. I took the rig to my local Firestone (I have the lifetime alignment B.S.) and now the caster measurements are not right and I'm sure most of you know, Gen 2 trucks have no [easy] way to adjust the caster. Is it possible I screwed something up when adjusting the torsion bars or does cranking the torsions even mess with caster? From what I can tell, measuring from the tops of the wheels to the fender arch, the driver side is almost .5" higher than the passenger, although I'm not overly confident in my measurements.. I did a bit of searching online and I haven't found a whole lot with regards to screwed up caster on these rigs, do any of you guys have an idea what may be wrong or can you suggest a good starting point to investigate? The truck aligned fine 6-7 months ago on 31's, stock wheels and stock ride height. Prior to the first alignment I installed all new Moog ball joints, tie rod ends and pitman arm. I also rebuilt the OEM idler with the ADD Kingpin kit, and while I've done a fair bit of wheeling, nothing has been too abusive. Any advice and or suggestions on where to begin would be much appreciated!

Caster is as follows:
L=3.15 R=2.60

Here's a pic of the rig on the lift, don't have any better pics with the new wheels as I haven't taken it out yet.
wi0m6d.jpg


A couple more pics of the beast in the wild are attached though, I love this truck. :)
 

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red97rum

New member
Previous accident? or current tech doesn't know what he is doing.
Hmm, no accidents (that I'm aware of) and the guy doing the alignment just kind of glazed over when I asked him about ride height and adjusting torsion bars.. So he definitely was not familiar at all with the Monty.
 

plh

Explorer
Hmm, no accidents (that I'm aware of) and the guy doing the alignment just kind of glazed over when I asked him about ride height and adjusting torsion bars.. So he definitely was not familiar at all with the Monty.

another thing that comes to mind might be lower control arm bushings. Your best bet is to find another shop.
 

Swank Force One

Adventurer
Caster IS legitimately a pain to set up on a lifted Gen2.

If the truck feels fine on the numbers in your OP, i'd just leave it. As long as toe and camber are where you like, that small caster variation isn't going to cause any noticeable wear issues. Nor in the context of bigass heavy SUV with big tires are you really going to feel it.
 

red97rum

New member
Caster IS legitimately a pain to set up on a lifted Gen2.

If the truck feels fine on the numbers in your OP, i'd just leave it. As long as toe and camber are where you like, that small caster variation isn't going to cause any noticeable wear issues. Nor in the context of bigass heavy SUV with big tires are you really going to feel it.
I wouldn't really mind because I know it doesn't cause any significant tire wear, but the truck does persistently track to the right and I know that will be annoying as ******** on long trips. I'll figure it out one way or the other, thanks for the help.
 

Swank Force One

Adventurer
Are you sure that's not just due to crown of the road? Mine does that as well, with all alignment specs dead on. It got notably worse when i put bigger tires on it. Doesn't seem to be a toe issue, doesn't take any effort to correct with the wheel.
 

red97rum

New member
I hoped that's all it was, but I drove it around quite a bit on pretty flat freeways and it tracks right. I mean it's not unmanageable, but I can definitely tell the difference from how it was. If I ever figure out how to correct it without screwing up a bunch other stuff, I'll post about it.
 

Tjtalan

Active member
By varying the shim thickness from front to rear of the control arm caster can be adjusted.


da4e8b2ee568506eb7ce0dfc5b395730.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

red97rum

New member
The OE shims are dual yoke, we've discovered over the years that doing single yoke shims they'll just walk out even if you properly torque (or if you overtorque) the bolts.

So if you want to use unequal shims to move caster around it's a good idea to switch to round shims (washers of precise thickness)
Thank you, I found a couple older threads with the same advice from Toasty. Do you know the size of washer needed, or rather the size of the control arm bolts?
 

red97rum

New member
Do you feel the bigger tires are worth the "headache", and will they help or hinder you on the trail?
Haha we don't ask questions like that, of course they are worth it lol. If I'm being honest, I'm not really sure now and these heavy ass things also really kill the torque. Thankfully I've got all the parts to swap in a non disco 4.90 setup, so that should help out. I think they will help me out on the trail once I finish getting all the pieces I'm working on put together. When the time comes for new tires, I'll probably go with 285/75/16 though.
 

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