Hey randjorn, sorry if you decided you didn't want to ask your question in this thread, or maybe figured it out from reading. But it seems pertinent to any discussion on Bronco steering to me, so I'll throw it in anyway.
Hope you don't mind.
Does anyone have recommended wheel alignment specs? I’d like to put my rig through an alignment shop to make sure I’m within spec but I’ve found a few conflicting posts on line.
I forget what year yours is, but while they varies slightly over the years, the most common factory specifications for a pre-'76 Bronco were:
Caster - 2.75° to 4.25° positive. With 3.5° considered optimal.
Camber - 1° 2° positive. With a max variance of .5°
Toe-In - 1/16" to 1/4" with 1/8" considered optimal.
That's factory spec. Most here that have played with their settings have found that a few can be changed with good benefit with modern tires and roadways.
Most have found happy medium somewhere between .5 and .75 degrees positive for Camber.
If you have manual steering (I know you don't, but for discussion...) the minimum caster is better. By 3 degrees you can start to feel it in your arms.
If you have power steering however, a Caster reading between 4 and 8 degrees positive is a good goal.
Toe-in is very vehicle-specific it seems, but I think most of us here that have tweaked with ours still find that 1/8" seems like the sweet spot. But it's also easy to test and drive, changing it in small increments until you think you have found the right place.
It handles alright right now but has a noticeably huge amount of positive camber. If anyone cares to chime in with some target numbers I’d appreciate it.
Many are like that. But it's shocking just how extreme that factory spec of 2 degrees looks. It might be a small amount, but you can really see the top tilting out at just 1 degree on a big tire. Two degrees is really tilted.
But it also wears the outside of the tires (especially the passenger side for some reason) so the ones that have adjusted theirs down to less than 1 degree (but more than zero) seem the happiest. Especially when it comes to tire wear.
A little cross-caster and cross-camber seem to be a good thing, but the alignment guys will have to give the finer details of that, and how it better follows the crowns in the road and all that. I don't remember the specifics, but know that it is "a thing" and should be factored in whenever possible.
Hope you can get your alignment printout and see what you can do. Most alignment shops won't remember how to add spindle shims, or ball-joint eccentrics, but some specialty shops will. And those are also things you can do in your driveway if you're into working on your rig too. Basic stuff in fact.
Once you know where things are now, you can do whatever it takes after that.
Paul