Note: Im a n00b to these forums. Mods, if you feel this serves a better purpose elsewhere, please move it there.

Preface: Your alignment is one of, if not the most critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to how your car or truck drives on a daily basis. Things such as camber, caster, toe and thrust angle all play a big part in making your car or truck track, accelerate, turn and stop like it needs to.

So with that said, and 600 miles on the odometer of my 2010 F150 King Ranch, I tackled the alignment today.

Disclaimer: Ive been aligning my own cars for about 10 years now. Id say Ive gotten fairly good at it by this point. I did this entire procedure today in less than 1hr and 15 minutes, and that included picture time. I have never ruined a set of tires that I didnt intentionally ruin, and those were mainly slicks or autocross dedicated sets.

That said, you can seriously shorten the life of your tires by doing this procedure incorrectly. I cant be held responsible for this. Anyone attempting this procedure should have some basic mechanical knowledge.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, ONWARD!

Things you will need:
Basic mechanical knowledge, as previously mentioned
Basic understanding of geometry
Track width for your particular model vehicle. As I have a 2010, I found mine here:
http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/specifications/
Four jackstands:

Fishing line:

A finely graduated ruler. This machinists ruler is what I use:

Four vinyl tiles. These can be found at Lowes or the like for cheap:

A 15mm and 24mm wrench:


A flat driveway generally helps as well, but we will get to that.

Optional equipment:
A digital level never hurts
Liquid patience:


Continued in next post...

 

Procedure:
While I know my garage floor is flat (less than 0.1* of slope), the truck is simply too large to fit in there with the staircase in the middle, so I had to resort to doing this on the driveway.
I began by taking level measurements where the red circles are:

The 0.5* is closest to the porch, 0.1* furthest away. Overall, its pretty level and definitely wont affect what we are doing here too badly. I wouldnt think of aligning my race car on this surface though.


Now, you want to take the vinyl tile sheets, grease the space between (I like to use white lithium grease, but use whatever you feel is best), sandwich them together, and drive onto them like so:


Sidenote: These are 12x12" tiles, and while they are fine for my racecar, Ill likely invest in something bigger for the truck due to the size of the contact patch.
IMPORTANT: Be sure when you pull onto the tiles that youve had a couple of feet to roll with the wheel perfectly straight. THIS HAS A LARGE BEARING ON THE OUTCOME OF YOUR ALIGNMENT! I cant stress this point enough.

String your fishing line and position the jackstands as pictured below:


Continued in third post...

 

Since the track on the 2010 is 67" front and rear, the distance from the string to the center of the wheels will be the same front and rear. Obviously, the rear (due to leaf spring and axle design) is non-adjustable, so you "run whatcha brung" back there. Up front though, we can change our toe. Camber and caster are more advanced techniques that the majority of people will need to see an alignment shop for. Their concepts are fairly hard to grasp without a good amount of experience, and lets be honest, there really isnt much need for a "performance" alignment like my racecar.

So, onward we go. We want to get the distance from the strings to the hubs to 100mm. I like 100mm because its a nice, arbitrary number, and in this case, its far enough out to avoid the running boards on this truck.


Note: In many of the pictures, Im not exactly on my measurements. Its hard to hold a camera and a ruler at the same time.
Front:

Rear:

Now that you have your "rack" essentially "zero'd out", we can get down to business. By knowing the track width and the distance to the hubs, the strings are now parallel with the frame. This does assume no frame damage or irregularities.

For purposes of example, my Miata has a difference of 19mm front to rear, with the rear being wider. In this case, I set the front to 100mm from the hub and the rear to 90.5mm from the hub to square the strings with the frame.

You want to measure the leading edge and the trailing edge of the wheel like so:


Example: If your front edge is 108mm and your rear edge is 104mm, your truck has TOE IN, meaning the wheel(s) are pointed inward. If the numbers were reversed, your truck has TOE OUT, meaning the wheels are pointed outward.

Now that we know our measurements, we can get down to adjusting them.

Underneath the truck are the tie rods for the steering rack, and this is where your adjustment is made. If your wheel was turned to either side when you parked, this is where that becomes an issue. Hopefully, its straight though.
You want to position your wrenches as shown:

The 21mm goes closest to the hub, 15mm goes on the tie rod.
Protip: Longer wrenches mean more leverage, and thats a good thing when your bolts were turned by Jethro in Dearborn.

Once you have the nut loose, you can go about turning the rod to bring your toe in line. When looking at the wheel itself (from the centerline of the truck) turning CLOCKWISE brings the front of the wheel in. COUNTERCLOCKWISE pushes the front of the wheel out. This is where the greased vinyl squares are handy, because they allow the wheel to move, and for you to check your measurements. A general rule of thumb is that 1/6th turn on the rod is about 2mm toe in either direction. Again, its a GENERAL rule.


Once youve gotten your toe where you want it, snug the 24mm bolt back up.
Important: You MUST hold the tie rod still when tightening that bolt. If the tie rod moves, your alignment will be off and youll have to readjust.

Once youre tightened up, youre good to go.

It generally takes me about an hour and thirty minutes to do a four wheel alignment including thrust angle. About 2.5 hours if I tinker with camber. This would easily take me 45 minutes from set up to tear down.

Ive had the alignment checked on a Hunter on my Miata after I aligned it, and the machine wont read less than 1/32 of an inch. It read zero for that particular alignment. You can achieve very good results on your own, all it takes is time, patience, and hopefully the know-how that you got from this guide.

 

Excellent contribution to the site! I will copy this to the Articles and How To section. Thanks!

 

Great "How To", cucamelsmd15!

It seems to me, on modern vehicles, that the wheel alignment (castor, camber and toe) holds very well over long periods, unlike the way it used to seem to "drift" back in the 60s and before. Do you find this to be the case?

- Jack

 

When I was a kid, my dad never measured auto maintenance/repair in time, it was always quantity of 6-packs.

I recall trying to help my Dad do this on a 73 Dodge sedan on a gravel driveway...

It was at least three 6-packs!

Very nice article and great documentation.

 

I would say modern vehicles are FAR better than older vehicles, with the caveat that it does depend on the road quality that you drive on. My previous car (Mazdaspeed 3) was aligned once when I brought it home, checked a few times, but otherwise, never touched in the 25k that I put on it. My wifes Subaru Legacy (which is now my car) has been about the same.

The Miata on the other hand never comes home with the same alignment it left the house with.

The difference in bushing quality, among other things, can be attributed to how well cars stay aligned once aligned these days.

I only use this measure of time when working on the race car.

 

great post!

 

Thanks for your contribution, cucamelsmd15!!!

 

No More Aluminum lower control arms?

 

Very neat write-up... I enjoyed that

 

It would appear that way. Mine are definitely steel.

 

Very nice! Thanks for posting that up.

 

Very very good write up, very good pics. You are no n00b to me

 

Nice write up! you have bypassed NoOb status, and I now dub you superman.