Steering question

[hpjunke]

Ok Ive been having some inner tire wear on my 73 challenger and it’s starting to wonder a little bit so I decided I decided to take a look under It .When I Got it up in the air,checked everything related to steering and didn’t see anything at all that was loose or had any play in it. With the car off , I’m able to move the tires side to side a little like it has play and I believe that is normal . With the car running at idle, there isn’t any play at all . I even took the pitman arm off grabbed the arm and moved it side to side to check for play and there isn’t any at all. So my theory is that it needs an alignment to set toe etc since it’s been a while since its been done so I’m looking to set it up as follows

caster +4
camber -1 to 1.5 max
toe 1/16 to 1/8 in

Does this look like I’m on the right track or should I look at something else here?

thanks guys !

 

[moparleo]

You never said what size tires or wheels that you are running.
If they are wide and the offset is more negative, you will never get very good wear.
They hava a lot more scrub when turning. Just part of the price paid for changes made to steering goemetry.
Another thing to inspect are the front, outer wheel bearings. Changes made to offsets shift the load from the large, load carrying inner bearing towatrds the much smaller ouetr bearing.

 

[Steve340]

Camber can only be negative 1/2 to max 3/4 of a degree or tyres will wear on a road car.
Avoid road racer caster settings as well IMO.
Use the factory service manual to go over the front end carefully - alignment techs these days will just put it on the machine and align it and not even check the front suspension.
Years ago an alignment tech made sure they were not wasting your money.

 

[hpjunke]

You never said what size tires or wheels that you are running.
If they are wide and the offset is more negative, you will never get very good wear.
They hava a lot more scrub when turning. Just part of the price paid for changes made to steering goemetry.
Another thing to inspect are the front, outer wheel bearings. Changes made to offsets shift the load from the large, load carrying inner bearing towatrds the much smaller ouetr bearing.

Running a 255/40/18 up front , all the stuff is pretty new (from dr diff) hubs, bearings and seals. There is no play in that stuff

 

[heminut]

It's been found that these cars like a lot of caster and 4 degrees isn't excessive if you can get that much adjustment. I did front end alignments for a living at one time, and the factory settings from back then were based on bias ply tires. The settings can and should be modified for the radial tires we run today. I'm running 3.5 degrees caster on my Cuda because that was the most I could get out of the adjustments, and it steers a LOT better than the old factory settings ever did.

You would probably have to change the upper control arm bushings to the Moog K7103 offset bushings to get more adjustment or go to a set of aftermarket upper control arms to get close to 4 degrees of caster.

 

[hpjunke]

It's been found that these cars like a lot of caster and 4 degrees isn't excessive if you can get that much adjustment. I did front end alignments for a living at one time, and the factory settings from back then were based on bias ply tires. The settings can and should be modified for the radial tires we run today. I'm running 3.5 degrees caster on my Cuda because that was the most I could get out of the adjustments, and it steers a LOT better than the old factory settings ever did.

You would probably have to change the upper control arm bushings to the Moog K7103 offset bushings to get more adjustment or go to a set of aftermarket upper control arms to get close to 4 degrees of caster.

They are qa1 arms upper and lower tubular k member pst torsion bars and magnum force 2” drop spindles

 

[heminut]

They are qa1 arms upper and lower tubular k member pst torsion bars and magnum 2” drop spindles

You should be able to dial it in okay with those parts!

 

[Xcudame]

What is the status of all your front end parts such as ball joints, tie rod ends, strut bushings, etc.? Assuming everything is recently new, you should be able to dial in the alignment. But if you have a worn out part, you can be chasing things for awhile! All the best!

 

[cuda joe]

do you know what the alignment specs are now ? I dpn;t know what you mean by [ With the car off , I’m able to move the tires side to side a little ] does the idler arm or center link have play ?

 

[hpjunke]

What is the status of all your front end parts such as ball joints, tie rod ends, strut bushings, etc.? Assuming everything is recently new, you should be able to dial in the alignment. But if you have a worn out part, you can be chasing things for awhile! All the best!

It’s got about 8,000 ,miles or less on that stuff

 

[hpjunke]

do you know what the alignment specs are now ? I dpn;t know what you mean by [ With the car off , I’m able to move the tires side to side a little ] does the idler arm or center link have play ?

No it’s been a while since I’ve aligned it , Means with the car off not running I’m able to move the tires side to side meaning the play from the fluid not moving through the Steering box. With the car at idle , there isn’t any play in any of these parts .. I also said back in my original post that I took the link bar off the pitman arm to check play in the steering box with thr car running and there wasn’t any

 

[hpjunke]

You should be able to dial it in okay with those parts!

Yeah It needs to go on the rack so we can get it dialed