Uneven tire wear... what's broken?

[TedJ]

Ok so this morning I drove to the place and got the socket. I took the sensor off and the spindle, driveshaft, and the pinch bolt and the lower ball joint nut. I took the camber adjuster out and then I all have to do is seperate the lower balljoint.... except it won't seperate. D'OH

I have tried BFH, bigger BFH, air chisel, more hammering etc, still cant get it off. IDK if I can get a pickle fork in there, I guess all I can do it keep pounding it with the hammer...

Would it be a good idea to heat the arm a bit, or will heating the metal stress it or something that wouldn't be good?

 

[TedJ]

Success... I got up from the comp and went out to the truck, just started wailing on it with a big 2lb hand sledge... and it popped off... now onto pressing the joints out...

 

[TedJ]

I got the balljoints in, did the ujoint, replaced everything in the spindle bearing , and got it all back together, I left off at torquing the spindle nuts. I think I'm gonna leave the rotors and wheel bearings for later, I'll do both at the same time... I'm gonna do the pass. side in the morning.

I've been taking pics as I've been going along, once I get it all done I will work on a writeup on how to do it.

A question: How much abuse do you think the ABS sensor can take? Mine is totally frozen in the hole, so I left it in and unplugged the wiring. However from my whack-it-with-a-hammer approach earlier, the tip (part that faces the tone wheel) is slightly pushed in. Will that effect its operation?

 

[Tbars4]

...It may keep it from reading and continuously throw an ABS light.....

...You might want to get a junk yard replacement..

 

[atistang]

that sensor is just a magnet, it should be fine

i beat on my lower ball joint with a 2lb sledge for almost an hour with a pickle fork before it broke loose

 

[TedJ]

Well yesterday I got the passenger side balljoints in, and got the axle all ready to go in... the U joint was toast, there was nothing but rust in the needle bearings. My tie rod end on that side was all messed up and the boot was exploded, so I had to go get new tie rod ends as well. I left off at reinstalling the axle.

IDK about the ABS sensor, I think I'm gonna risk it for now since there are no junkyards locally, and new ones are at least $60 If it is bad, I will have to destroy them to remove them, they are totally stuck in the hole on both sides. I'm just gonna hope being a tiny bit dented wont affect their operation....

 

[Tbars4]

...Lol, as artistang mentioned they should be fine, especially if they are dented just a little bit...

...It sounds like your truck will act like a new vehicle during the winter months...

 

[TedJ]

Yea it's going to be like driving a new truck... The front end is gonna be almost totally new. It's a good thing I'm doing this, the gasket on the axle that seals the spindle was split and water was starting to get into the spindle. There was still just enough grease that it wasn't rusting inside yet. My auto hubs should be good too, they're been soaking in ATF for 4 days now lol. I can't wait to get her back on the road...

 

[atistang]

Yea it's going to be like driving a new truck... The front end is gonna be almost totally new. It's a good thing I'm doing this, the gasket on the axle that seals the spindle was split and water was starting to get into the spindle. There was still just enough grease that it wasn't rusting inside yet. My auto hubs should be good too, they're been soaking in ATF for 4 days now lol. I can't wait to get her back on the road...

i would put it in 4x4 and got about 50 ft down the road to get the hubs to lock, then take it out of 4x4 and go in reverse to unlock them, do that a few times to help free them up

 

[TedJ]

So job is done now, it just needs an alignment and new tires... some of my rims are in bad shape (peeling) so I'm gonna go drive today and pick up another set, and have the new tires put on the better rims. Hopefully tomorrow I can get an appointment at the tire place and get the truck back on the road. It's killing me that I can't take it for a drive cause the alignment is really scary lol. (I hope I can make it the 3 or so miles to the tire shop)

I am gonna try the 4x4 just to make sure everything still works, I think it should work fine, my 4x4 worked last winter and that was with everything messed up, should be perfect now that the hubs are clean and lubed.

 

[TedJ]

Ok good news is that the ABS is not complaing, and the brakes are absolutely incredible, it stops very nice with 1/2 the pedal pressure it needed before.

I took it to the tire place, and now the fun begins, I had 4 new Cooper Discerver ATR's installed and an allignment. I asked the guy how the allignment went, he said everything was fine. Drove it, it pulled to the right...and the tires were all underinflaed by at least 10psi.. and the lugs were torqued to ~75 ft-lb or so... I fixed that stuff...

So I took it back this morning... they realligned it, it still pulls right, and my camber won't go into spec, the bushings are at the max.

The stuff I saw at the place while they were aligning it again was scary... cars not on the lift straight... brake calipers hanging by the hoses...etc so I called up and yelled and they're gonna refund my money now for the alignment.

Now I need to figure out why the camber wont go in spec?!?!? The bushings are all the way out.. and you can still visibly see that the tires aren't standing straight up... any ideas why?

 

[Anime]

The TTB front end is pretty easy to align in a flat driveway or parking lot. A good angle level and tape measure works wonders. It's even easier if the stock alignment shims/bushings are what's in there and you just need to make a slight adjustment with a new one.

I've personally had it with alignment shops, they usually don't care enough to do a good job, make a fuss about you sitting in the vehicle when getting it aligned (even though that's the only correct way to do it), don't have the right parts, and then try to BS you that they did it right even when it's obvious they just banged on it with a hammer to force the bushings to turn and get you off their back. Unless you know someone who works at a shop or theres a place with a stellar reputation for doing good work on 4x4's or alignments on high performance vehicles, I'd say save your money and the headache and do it yourself.

 

[TedJ]

Well right now I have the fully adjustable bushings installed in there... and I'll agree 100% with you on shops being scary and not caring. Since I'm going to be getting my $79 back, I'm gonna go to the dealer over here who has an ok reputation and let them mess with it. The bushings are supposed to be at the maximum +4 degree setting and the camber is still visibly off. So I'll let them see what's going on. If that fails then I will talk to some of my connections and may be able to get myself some time on an alignment machine.

So if the bushings are maxed out, and the camber is still off, what can cause that?

 

[TedJ]

Well dealer has no alignment machine currently (getting a new one) so they recommended another place where I have been before, so I made an appointment there.

Also, I checked the bushings and they are NO WHERE NEAR maxed out... the just didn't know how to adjust them... Stupid me for believing them. D'oh.

And Anime4x4 can you tell me more about how the procedure goes for doing it manually... I'm just interested in how you do it.

 

[TedJ]

Finally, its DONE

They spent around 2 hrs working on it, and it drives perfectly straight now. Cost me $150 but it was well worth it. Thanks to everyone who helped out in this thread, because you gave me the info I needed to do the job & write a how-to article... and saved me a lot of cash.

 

[Anime]

Glad to hear you got it all worked out.

The bushings don't "max out", but they can change the camber AND caster at the same time depending which side you have them on and which direction they are turned. Basically, one bushing can be used four different ways, two ways for each side. If one side needs a drastically larger bushing than the other, or either needs quite a bit (provided you don't have a spacer lift or anything), then the springs, spring seats, radius arm bushings, and even the radius arm brackets should be checked. Anything bent, loose or worn can affect the geometry. Most of the time, the radius arm bushings are the cause, especially if they're rubber. An upgrade to polyurethane bushings is worthwhile.

Theres a write-up somewhere on here about the alignment, using a bubble angle level and tape measure. Basically, you just orient the TTB at ride height with a jackstand and the wheel off, then check the camber and caster with the level against the flat part of the hub body, going for either the stock settings or whatever you want. You can adjust toe by using the tape measure, and marking a point on each front tire, then measuring the distance between them when they're on the front and back side, rolling the vehicle back and forth on a level surface and adjusting the tie rods until you get just a slight bit of toe-in, 1/8 in. is good.

I personally do these as a rough alignment, and adjust over time as needed if it ever pulls slightly to one side or something. Using tire markers and checking the contact pattern is another way to check if anything is off, or checking overall treadwear in the longer term. I'm about to replace the ball joints and put it on an alignment rack myself to see how accurate my measurements have been.

Hopefully that $150 gets you free lifetime alignments, (and you got your original bushings back), so you'll never have to mess with it again.

 

[TedJ]

Just to clarify...They didn't have to change any of my bushings... I put in the adjustable two piece ones when I did the ball joints. Its basically a bushing inside a bushing, so you can adjust the caster and camber somewhat independently, and eliminates the need for changing bushings because you can achieve any setting that you could with a full assortment of the regular bushings.

My $150 did not get me lifetime alignments... I went to a local independent shop which is expensive but they do the job right, and considering that they worked on it for two hours (I was there watching, they really did) then IMO the price is not out of line. $75 an hour is actually on the lower end of what I have seen for shop labor rates.

One of those mass produced $79 alignment places like I went to in the first place is not going to spend two hours working on your vehicle, they're going to have some incompetent moron who rushes through the job, and just sets the toe and parks your car back outside.

And they were the ones who told me the bushings were maxed out.... but they weren't. Even though I gave them the instructions that came with the bushings, they still didn't understand that you have to turn the outer part to adjust the camber. They spun the inner caster part around and tried to use just that to set it, and obviously they couldn't, so they told me it was maxed out. Oh, and when I got my money back they were accusing me of making it unalignable cause I had "messed with the suspension" (i.e. installing the bushings)

I see that you have been successful in doing your own alignments, and I suppose I could have done it that way as well, but IMO spending the $150 is worth it to make sure that my new $500 set of tires don't end up worn out sooner than they have to be. If I was still running my old crappy tires I probably would have given it a shot just to see what would happen.