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Steering Upgrade / Alignment Read out

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BGBronco

BGBronco

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Well, I should have gone in with my desired specs, I will do that next time.

My tires are all at about 29. I had the alignment done at firestone and paid the extra $80 for the lifetime alignment so I will become a regular.

Based on what I have read, until I do the c bushings, I'm not going to see any major changes so I have that on the calendar early next week.

All comments welcome. Appreciate all of the input. Thank you.
 
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BGBronco

BGBronco

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Good info Paul, thank you. Not sure about the alignment specs and why he chose them. I wasn't that worried about it because I really just wanted a baseline to figure out what I have and get the caster reading.

It is definitely more responsive (not necessarily a positive with the negative caster) but as I am figuring out the hard way, you can't navigate around the wrong C bushings so that's next.

Overall, it rides better but it's not there yet. All new steering components, including the drop pitman / Trac bar made a big difference.

Probably could have kept the old tie road, trac bar, and drag link and just replaced the bushings but I just felt it was better to get everything new and working how it should.
 

englewoodcowboy

Lick Creek Restorations
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Looking at the bias of caster and camber to one side I would say you have a slight lean issue going on. As Paul stated, go to 7° bushings, don't forget to replace the arm bushings where they attach to the frame as well. Here is my method to leave the tires on and not have to re-bleed the brake system:

If you have jack stands that you can support the front of the frame with, you will need to pull springs, disconnect the shocks, disconnect the front drive shaft at the axle, drop your drag link from the pitman arm and track bar from the frame, I use a big zip tie and bundle the track bar and drag link to the tie rod so they are off the ground and out of the way. Then you can remove your spring buckets and roll the axle forward to slide the arms out of the frame holes. Lay the radius arms to the ground and note if the tips of the threaded portion are both even on the ground, I suspect they won't be. When you pull the C Caps off to remove the bushings, wire wheel the nodules on the axle and the inside of the C Caps and give them a shot of quick dry paint. Use petroleum jelly to lubricate both sides of the bushings, I put so much on them that when I slide them into the radius arm they sort of stick. Make sure you get them in the correct orientation and reassemble both sides leaving them loose. A third jack stand comes in handy under the pinion to help stabilize things if you are doing it by yourself. Once they are on and loose, then lay the arms on the ground once again and start tightening alternating diagonally on the cap and from side to side. As you tighten one you will see the arms start to move and you just have to be patient and slowly work them side to side keeping the arms even on the ground. Once done you simply revers procedure to reinstall the axle. Your alignment will still be in tack so long as you do not loosen any of the adjuster sleeves etc. then go get another alignment. Next go round after you are certain there is no lean etc. I can help you get your amber in better shape so you don't wear on the edges of your tires if this does not get it back to a neutral state. Factory specs on Camber is 1.5° +/- .5° caster is 1.5° +/- .25°. Better for bigger tire handling, and life in general is Camber of 0°-.5° and caster of 4° or more. This will have it handle like newer vehicles.
 
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BGBronco

BGBronco

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Appreciate the road map. I may video it and I can promise that watching me in action doing this would be very, very entertaining

\
Looking at the bias of caster and camber to one side I would say you have a slight lean issue going on. As Paul stated, go to 7° bushings, don't forget to replace the arm bushings where they attach to the frame as well. Here is my method to leave the tires on and not have to re-bleed the brake system:

If you have jack stands that you can support the front of the frame with, you will need to pull springs, disconnect the shocks, disconnect the front drive shaft at the axle, drop your drag link from the pitman arm and track bar from the frame, I use a big zip tie and bundle the track bar and drag link to the tie rod so they are off the ground and out of the way. Then you can remove your spring buckets and roll the axle forward to slide the arms out of the frame holes. Lay the radius arms to the ground and note if the tips of the threaded portion are both even on the ground, I suspect they won't be. When you pull the C Caps off to remove the bushings, wire wheel the nodules on the axle and the inside of the C Caps and give them a shot of quick dry paint. Use petroleum jelly to lubricate both sides of the bushings, I put so much on them that when I slide them into the radius arm they sort of stick. Make sure you get them in the correct orientation and reassemble both sides leaving them loose. A third jack stand comes in handy under the pinion to help stabilize things if you are doing it by yourself. Once they are on and loose, then lay the arms on the ground once again and start tightening alternating diagonally on the cap and from side to side. As you tighten one you will see the arms start to move and you just have to be patient and slowly work them side to side keeping the arms even on the ground. Once done you simply revers procedure to reinstall the axle. Your alignment will still be in tack so long as you do not loosen any of the adjuster sleeves etc. then go get another alignment. Next go round after you are certain there is no lean etc. I can help you get your amber in better shape so you don't wear on the edges of your tires if this does not get it back to a neutral state. Factory specs on Camber is 1.5° +/- .5° caster is 1.5° +/- .25°. Better for bigger tire handling, and life in general is Camber of 0°-.5° and caster of 4° or more. This will have it handle like newer vehicles.
 

pcf_mark

Bronco Guru
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Is there a down side to going to 7 degrees right away? Do you need to have a lift or can you use them with a stock suspension?
 

DirtDonk

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There are actually some potential downsides, but they have little to do with the amount of lift you have. You can put the bushings in at any time, with any lift.
One downside which is rarely seen is the potential for the pinion angle to be too severe for the particular u-joint/driveshaft. This is more likely to happen with taller lifts (above 3.5") but in theory could happen to any truck. This is the reason you don't see anything larger than a 7 degree offset in the first place.
But as I said, it's potential only for most EB's and I've never heard of anyone with 2.5" or less having a driveshaft/pinion angle issue even with 7 degree bushings.

The other is the tilt of the lower trackbar stud. This also is almost a non-issue. Not because it doesn't exist, because it definitely does. But lifting your truck tilts the stud from it's stock position all on it's own. Using bushings to bring it back some can either put it back to near stock, or perhaps even go back the other way.
This is one of the huge advantages of an adjustable trackbar though. With the adjustable upper eye, the lower stud angle is not a problem. Simply twist the upper eye to align with the upper hole neutrally, and you're good to go.
Even a stock truck goes through trackbar angle changes during suspension movement of any kind. That's why there are bushings just as much as for road noise/vibration reduction. Like the radius arms, the trackbar is a big torsion bar that twists with suspension travel. This is how a trackbar can take part in causing Bronco-lean as well.
What you don't want is for your bushings to be in a bind just sitting there. With an adjustable trackbar this issue goes away.

I suppose the last possible problem could be "too much caster" for a given vehicle. But I don't know more than maybe one or two people who have ever experienced that. For most EB's, there is literally no such thing as too much caster.

And on the good side, now that you know what your existing caster angles are, and with a given degree of offset in the bushings, you know within a degree or so what you will end up with. Installing 4 degree bushings would net you a very workable caster angle.
But hoping for at least 4 degrees positive, only the 7's are capable of getting you there.

Paul
 
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BGBronco

BGBronco

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After prolonging my c bushing 'upgrade,' I finally manned up and did it yesterday. I won't be able to get my alignment until later this week but my seat of the pants assessment is that this made a big difference. I had about -1.5 caster and am hoping the 7 degree bushings show me some better numbers.

Overall, not that bad of a job, 3 hours of mental torchure placated by several victory beers afterwards. I read all of the info and ended up doing englewoodcowboys version (thank you) or my modified version of it anyway. No bronco lean, so far.
 

DirtDonk

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Hey, congrats on finally tackling the beast! Glad it turned out to be less troublesome than expected. But even gladder(%)) it actually helped some.
Very interested in the readings too, but without reading back do you know what c-bushings were in there before?
If rubber at zero degrees offset, then you could be sporting as much as +5.5° now. If already poly, then whatever the difference, and welcome to it.

Paul
 
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BGBronco

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They are orange so I'm assuming poly. They were pretty worn out so couldn't read the numbers. HOWEVER, the patent numbers were in tact .... James Duff from 1988, the patent anyway. I'm pretty sure these guys did their job and then some over the last 30 years.

2.5" Lift, 7 Degree c bushings, 33/12.5/15 tires. Based on what I've read, I need the toe at 1/8 and the Camber at .5-1. Correct?
 

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DirtDonk

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The toe-in can be finicky, but yes, a 1/8" toe is very often the sweet spot. Just like the book calls for.
But you can really fell the difference of 1/16" either way, so I always highly recommend that you drive it as set for awhile, but then play with the adjuster a tiny bit (either direction) and then drive it a bit again to see if it got better or worse.
It's not a night-or-day difference, and certainly not dangerous to make a tiny change to toe, but you can feel the slight differences in how it drives on the street. And since every tire-wheel-vehicle combination can be different, it's nice to know you're at the best setting for your vehicle.

The camber sounds perfect too. Anywhere between .25° and .75° positive camber should get you good road feel without the tire wear associated with the older 1-2 degree recommendations.
Listen to some of the alignment experts here as to what cross-camber and cross-caster settings would be ideal for a Bronco. I don't remember the details myself.
But the way they work, having one or the other side with slightly more caster and/or camber than the other is not a mistake, but in fact a beneficial setup.

Paul
 

1strodeo

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Carry a large wrench with you for the next bit of driving and after each drive check the torque on the pitman arm nut. They can tighten up quite a bit after sometimes, as the pitman arm moves up the taper.

And last but not least, tighten the trackbar bracket up quiteubergutentight and then, when all is said and done and you're happy with the results, put some good welds on it to make it permanent.

Paul

good tip on the pitman nut Paul, I didn't even think of that...and still waiting on that 'happy with results part' before doing my weld ;D
 

DirtDonk

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thanks. Yeah, sometimes that "when happy" part takes some time. But make sure that what you're not happy with is not the extra wandering that you may very well experience from the trackbar bracket flexing. With mine, it was quite noticeable on the daily drives.
Not dangerous mind you, but enough that I thought one of the bushings was worn out.

And in a perfect world you should never have to re-torque a pitman arm nut. The arm and shaft should in theory be a perfect match and slide right up to their max and tighten down and stay there.
But we no longer live in a perfect world, and one manufacturer's precision is another manufactuer's unacceptable slop.

So it's on us, as end-users to make sure we check and re-check everything. And if something just doesn't look or feel right, question it first.
It's easier (and safer) to fix now than later.

Paul
 
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BGBronco

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We will see what happens in the morning. Hoping to post some adequate numbers!
 
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BGBronco

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Here are my new specs. These are before and after with just adding the 7° C bushings and no other adjustments. Note the before measurements are from about 6 months ago so I'm sure some things shifted around.

I know the caster isn't ideal but it's a 5° difference from what I had before so the trend line is good.
 

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1strodeo

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Installing my C bushings this morning, had planned to read thru this thread to see what tips you were referring to earlier, I will not have after numbers but here are my before
 

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BGBronco

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I'm a one-time expert so take this for what it's worth.

Read and re-read all of the steps outlined by others above, PB blaster the night before, left wheels on, jacked up the front so wheels were about 1.5" off the ground (see pic and comment below), removed track bar at the bracket only, removed drag link from pitman arm only, removed shocks and springs from the bottom only, disconnected front axle, removed 8 radius arm bolts, rolled axle forward, popped out c bushings, removed noticeable debris from arm brackets but didn't do a full cleaning, lubricated and installed new bushings, reinstalled bolts in cross pattern, and put it back together. No lean, yet anyway.

A few comments:

1) I have 3 T jack stands and a floor jack. It was a pain to jack up the bronco from the pumpkin and get it on the jack stands because the weight shifts around. I had some room left in the stands but I would plan on at least 14 12 x 12s (7 for each side). I also needed two boards under my floor jack to make the magic happen.

2) Once springs are disconnected, wheels dropped to barely touching the ground. I think this was good.

3) I reinstalled the arms first and the axle second. I was able to get a decent read on the side to side radius arm height / measurements by loosely fitting the arms and then rolling the axle back in.

4) My radius arms had slightly longer bolts so I used a clamp and didn't need longer starter bolts.
 

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High Voltage 76

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For what it's worth BGBronco, thank you for starting this thread, and thanks to DirtDonk, 1strodeo and others for their input. I'm about to undertake the same project on my '76. I'm feeling a lot more confident about getting started having read through this thread.
 

1strodeo

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I did not have the means to support the frame at the front due to height so I supported it just behind the radius arm-to-frame bushings with tires BARELY off the ground...not to mention jacks in front are a real PITA to work around on this particular job.

All the front end bushings were replaced by PO at some point so I was doing c bushings only (which I discovered were 4 degree) I left shocks and drag link attached and had no problem.

GREAT tip by englewood with the vaseline, the caps tightened up MUCH easier than I recall on my 66...kinda made me feel like Percy from the Green Mile when he didn't wet the sponge %)

Thanks BG and all for tips and good luck High Voltage, as mentioned read and heed all the tips and tricks in this thread -jeff
 
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