Greetings all...

I have a 97 F150 with 17" rims (265 70 17 tires) and recently replaced my front ball joints on both sides. Accordingly, the upper control arms had to be replaced. Upon doing so, I found that the camber bolts were set differently on the truck. For sake of explanation, the driver side was set in (i.e. offset washer placement resulted in the bolt being closer to the middle of the truck) and the passenger side was set out.

My assumption is that a previous alignment resulted in these settings in the past (I purchased the truck used). Recognizing uneven wear on the inside of the driver side tire, would this camber setting be the culprit, the worn-out ball joints, a combination?

I reassembled the the upper control arms with the camber bolts as they had been (driver-side in, passenger-side out) anticipating that they were set that way for a reason.

Perhaps this post is unnecessary as I will be getting new tires and will have a professional alignment done anyways...but wanted to get some opinions for my own sake and to discuss with the mechanic when I get the alignment.

Does the different settings make sense?

Thanks!

 

I didn't know the camber bolts affected toe that much.

 

Oh for Pete's sake...my apologies (I'm working on the rear end of my wife's Honda Civic right now and the toe setting on the control arms there as well...seems my brain has combined the two.)

I've gone ahead and edited my mistakes above. This is my first time working on a forum like this.

Thanks for your patience and any advice you can give!

 

Advice...if you touched those bolts (and obviously you did to replace the upper control arm), you need an alignment. No matter how well or how close you think you got them back, you need an alignment. You already think you have an alignment problem anyways, so get it squared away; no need to wait for tires. As a general rule, an alignment should follow the replacement of any parts; ball joints, tie rod ends, etc. shocks generally don't as they have no effect on geometry.

 

It may have been aligned with worn components resulting in the weirdness you see, or something could be bent. Either way, like Galaxy said - you need an alignment.