Driverside rear axle or bed alignment?

[sporttracinva]

I am about to install a 3" body lift with a tt and an aal in the near future. I put some 1.5" spacers on my stock wheels recently to be able to retain my oem wheels to fit bigger tires. After adding the spacers I noticed the driver side rear wheel does not stick out as far as the passenger side. Has anyone else had this issue? I double checked to make sure wheels were the same and swapped them from one side to the other and that didn't make a difference. I also took a tape measure out and started measuring everything on the axle which seemed to match on both sides. There is about a .5-1" difference in how far the passenger side sticks out further than the driver side. Could this be a bed/body alignment issue or is the whole axle assembly somehow shifted on one side? Nothing looks out of place under truck however. I jacked it up and started checking everything out for like an hour last night.

 

[swshawaii]

Very surprised this doesn't come up more often on the forum since everyone with an 8.8 rear axle has a rear passenger tire that sticks out at least 1/2" farther than the driver side. As you mentioned not having the bed centered may have a visual effect. Other causes may be deteriorated or loose body mounts causing the cab to shift sideways, especially the orange MCU foam ones under the "A" and "B" pillars that are common failures on all 2001-05 Sport Tracs. Also be aware the center line front track width spec is 30mm (1.18") wider than the rear on the ST. Amazing how we see small oddities on our trucks that nobody else notices. LOL

http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/ford-8-8-differential-off-center-ok-217666.html


Wonder if the offset axle and rear sway bar end link mounting points are measures to counter the common "Ranger lean"? :scratch:

 

[sr139fox]

It might be set up for NACAR. Better handling in the turns. Bet the inspectors never saw that one. Good fast turn left. I could not help myself. Dave P.

 

[sporttracinva]

If the rear driver side wheel still bothers me after the body lift and the new tires, I think I will just buy either another spacer that is 1.75" or 2" so that I can put on that one wheel to resolve my OCD-like issue with this rear end. Since most places sell spacers in pairs does anyone else have this issue and want to split a set of spacers we both only need one?

 

[96firephoenix]

any way to loosen the leaf spring bolts and just kick the axle sideways? on my firebird, I've got the same issue, but that's due to something called the panhard brace, which you don't see on trucks.

just remember, those spacers cut your gas mileage with the added rotating mass.

Also, each part you add is a potential failure point.

 

[sporttracinva]

Unless I cut off and weld the leaf spring perches over along with moving the axle over I don't think simply unbolting the leaf spring from the axle and pushing it over will work. I am very familiar with other suspension setups that have actual links with Panhard rods, which ours does not use. Re-welding option would give me a reason to do a SOA but not sure I want to SAS the front at the moment.

As far as the rotating mass and strength of spacers, plenty of people use them and using them in combo with stock wheels only pushes wheel out like adding aftermarket wheels. The rolling mass should not matter as they weigh close to nothing being aluminum and all.