Front End Alignment Consultation

[WPS 73 Bronco]

Zach, not sure where you’re at in Texas but there’s a good shop in Tomball that knows how to work on alignment issues on early broncos.

 

[bigmuddy]

Just chiming in here, I recently lifted and aligned my Bronco, and added all new steering. No 5.5” lift, just 2.5”, but regardless getting a lifted Bronco to solid alignment is a chore. James Duff has some great videos on how to get better than stock alignment. Go to their YouTube channel and watch all the videos on it to help grasp the concepts if you don’t already know them. Those plus this forum were a huge help to get mine driving a lot better.

For mine I had to do the following:

First things first I went and got an alignment numbers on existing Bronco from a local shop to understand what needed fixing. Knowing your baseline is essential to getting the right parts.

1. All new Heim steering linkage, Duffs is great cause you can adjust while installed.
2. Adjusted and centered steering box and aligned pitman arm to the frame (arm is a beast to get loose).
3. Put in all new 7degree C-bushings and radius arm bushings to get caster to 3-4 degrees positive based on my initial numbers. As far as I could go without a cut and turn on axle, some guys say get to 5-7 degrees positive caster. But 3-4 is respectable.
4. Leveled my radius arms with careful c-cap bolt tightening to avoid Bronco lean
5. Made sure pinion angle passed the droop test, to make sure you don’t break or wear driveshaft down.
6. Put extended brake lines up front as well.
7. Got toe in to 1/4”, and caster to 1/8” if I remember right, or right around zero.

With a lift like yours though I imagine you’ll need a drop pitman arm, and a welded on trac bar bracket(which is stronger than a trac bar frame drop bracket). Also you can do tie-rod over install to help with geometry being less steep. I also imagine you have radius arm drop brackets or extended radius arms for a lift that big, I’m not even sure you can lift 5.5” without doing that . And hopefully a high pinion on your front axle to get any sort of reasonable pinion angle on the front driveshaft. Other options are a cut and turn on the axle, and adjusting the c-bushing wedges at an axle shop. As you can see the ripple effects can be large, and a lot of guys just change one thing but don’t bother with the ramifications. Either they don’t know, it’s too expensive, or just ran out of time, or don’t care and have run their Bronco that way for ages, or all of the above. Just depends on your goal, your anal retentiveness, and how many replacement parts you want to buy. But get one good death rattle due to bad steering geometry and you’ll finally get after it. I hear it’s a butt puckering experience. Hope this helps! Good luck!

Good points, I run a 2.5 lift with the duff long arms and the GM 1 ton Tie rods over. I can run 80 down the highway without any issues, but with all those changes I had to go to a goofy joint to be able to attach the front driveshaft, due to the pinion angle tipped down too much. It works fine in offroad but if I was to drive this truck on wintery roads all the time, I would pull it all out and have the axle turned correctly. Hell, I might do it anyway...

 

[cldonley]

By the way for $300ea these are not bad at all: https://www.herculestire.com/tire-details/Hercules/TIS-Offroad-TT1

According to my tire guy here in beautiful downtown Robinson Texas, Hercules is a Cooper brand. I've have four on my car for about 25k miles-seem like great tires.

 

[TX-ZACH]

Zach, not sure where you’re at in Texas but there’s a good shop in Tomball that knows how to work on alignment issues on early broncos.

Tomball is driveable. Im out in Chappell Hill/Brenham area. You know the name? Are you talking about Pop's in Pinehurst? A buddy mentioned his shop to me yesterday.

 

[WPS 73 Bronco]

Absolute Suspension

 

[stupidboy]

Thats why I'm making Camber shims... Took my extreme 1.2 degree camber to the desired 0.6 degrees.

I like these. Any trouble getting the spindle to slide back into the knuckle?

 

[reamer]

Nope 5 minute job, Get the Spindle puller, and off in seconds, Shim goes behind spindle, bolt spindle back on and
assemble the rest...

 

[TX-ZACH]

Not camber. Toe-in changes with the stock 76/77 steering links.

Can’t wait to see what the numbers are when you get it up on a rack.

In the meantime, have you ever measured between the bottom of the frame rails and the top of the axle?
Just to verify what lift you’re actually sitting at.

Its like you guys can tell the future. It had some toe in and was able to adjust with what I had for now and testing. To the eye still looks like yuge + camber. Drive ability improved, shall see with tire wear. Camber and Caster still out but not making very much sense to me. I researched the Duff Heim system a bit and leaning that way for future replacement.

 

[reamer]

Caster seems on the excessive-but-good side, Camber is off too. if you drive forward going straight , come to a stop, get out and get in front of it, look at the front end, tires at eye level, are the tires at 90 degrees to the pavement and axle tube?

 

[TX-ZACH]

Caster seems on the excessive-but-good side, Camber is off too. if you drive forward going straight , come to a stop, get out and get in front of it, look at the front end, tires at eye level, are the tires at 90 degrees to the pavement and axle tube?

To the eye it looks like this.

 

[toddz69]

If I'm reading the charts correctly, your caster looks great (5.3-5.5) and your camber isn't bad either (+0.9-1.0).

Todd Z.

 

[reamer]

I got my camber to 0.6 degrees with caster shims.

 

[DirtDonk]

Remember that the factory specifications was up to, and including 2° positive camber.
So you can be visibly way out at the top and still be within specifications, and an alignment technician isn’t gonna point that out because it’s within spec on their sheet.

I believe the spec was between one and two, with one and a half being optimal.
But that was back then and this is now. And we know a lot more, know different, and tires are different too.

 

[CopperBronco]

Agreed here, overall doesn’t look bad! I’d drive it and watch the tires. I’m assuming it drives straight & smooth down the road now? And I installed Duff’s dual sport Heim steer and love it… my ball joints were shot and nothing was adjustable. Just measure your lengths and follow instructions before purchase, or call them to make sure you’ll be good with your 5.5” lift. Gonna need to weld on a trac bar riser bracket off your front axle to get good geometry, and install tie rod over, and possible a drop pitman arm as well.

 

[ksagis]

The before toe number looks crazy high - 2.5 degrees is about 1.5 inches front to back. That much toe would be rather obvious visually, the after toe looks in the ball park.

 

[TX-ZACH]

The before toe number looks crazy high - 2.5 degrees is about 1.5 inches front to back. That much toe would be rather obvious visually, the after toe looks in the ball park.

It was crazy to watch the tire/wheel correct with each turn of the wrench. I'm going to drive it and see how the tires wear. After I get shocks figured out and replaced, Ill pull the trigger on a new steering system to see if I can get a better ride. Right now it feels great even at high speed.

 

[TX-ZACH]

Not camber. Toe-in changes with the stock 76/77 steering links.

Can’t wait to see what the numbers are when you get it up on a rack.

In the meantime, have you ever measured between the bottom of the frame rails and the top of the axle?
Just to verify what lift you’re actually sitting at.

Not camber. Toe-in changes with the stock 76/77 steering links.

Can’t wait to see what the numbers are when you get it up on a rack.

In the meantime, have you ever measured between the bottom of the frame rails and the top of the axle?
Just to verify what lift you’re actually sitting at.

I wanted to circle back. I measured bottom frame to top of axle this morning and its right at 12" on both front and back.

 

[DirtDonk]

Well, that’s pretty consistent with a 5 1/2 inch lift on. You’re within half an inch of nominal front and back.
And that slight variation is typical because every bronco (and sometimes the lift) is different.

I think someone said it early on, but the 77 steering linkage is problematic with that amount of lift Need to do a lot of custom work or simply replace the linkage with the earlier “inverted T“ style.
Preferably of beefier construction than stock.

I guess I should go back and reread though, in case you’ve already done that.

 

[TX-ZACH]

Well, that’s pretty consistent with a 5 1/2 inch lift on. You’re within half an inch of nominal front and back.
And that slight variation is typical because every bronco (and sometimes the lift) is different.

I think someone said it early on, but the 77 steering linkage is problematic with that amount of lift Need to do a lot of custom work or simply replace the linkage with the earlier “inverted T“ style.
Preferably of beefier construction than stock.

I guess I should go back and reread though, in case you’ve already done that.

I plan on scrapping the stock steering and go with the Duff Heim System. After that I will get it religned. I am rubbing my passenger side front wheel so need to get it fixed pretty quick.

 

[DirtDonk]

If you’re careful about how you install the new tie-rod, you shouldn’t have to have it realigned.
And as far as centering the steering box, you can do that yourself if the draglink is adjustable.

Where are you rubbing the tire? If it’s the radius arm, just turn out the steering stop a little bit.
If it’s a body part then you may need to either trim it, or adjust the track bar.
I don’t remember in your pictures if you have an adjustable trackbar already. But it all depends on where it’s rubbing.