pulling to the right | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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pulling to the right

justinf89

Well-Known Member
Joined
April 21, 2010
Messages
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City, State
Hampton, VA
Year, Model & Trim Level
'97 xlt 4x4
I've been trying to figure out my alignment problems for a while now. When going down a non-crowned road(middle of neighborhood road) it pulls pretty hard to the right. I've tried rotating the tires, I made sure both front tire pressures are identitcal, the toe in looks good in general (wheel straight, with a 4' level). I know it's not very scientific but I can tell that neither is way off possibly causing it to pull right. I don't think its because of a dragging brake because this happened before and gradually got worse until I had it aligned about a year ago(15k miles at least). They aligned it and it was fine until the last few months. Before the last alignment, the upper control arms(will ball joints), lower ball joints, and shocks were all replaced.

One thing I did notice when I was eyeballing the frontend is that the passenger side tire sticks out about 1" further out of the wheel arch than the driver side. Could this possibly be because of the two piece uca?

I'm at a loss here. I will be sure that the brakes aren't dragging but after that, I guess I can raise the passenger side tire pressure like 7-10psi higher than the driver side. I imagine that would help out a little. Thanks guys.
 






Toe isn't going to cause a pull. Camber and caster will cause the pull.
You can check camber with a level. Place the level on the side wall of the tire, off to the side slightly so your not on the bulge where the tire contacts the road. You should see the offset level indicating negative camber. Move the top of the level off the tire until the level reads level. Make a mental note of the distance between the level and the top of the tire. Do the same thing for the other side, what your looking for is the camber to be the same on both sides. The distance from the top of the tire to the point the level is "level" should be the same. Make sure you do this on flat ground, you should see no more then ~1 inch distance. If your seeing more then that, you have to much negative camber. An alignment is needed.
 






Possible wheel bearing? If you jack up the vehicle and grab the wheel, is there any excessive play?
 






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