Alignment issues after lift

I installed the 3" RCX lift 2 weekends ago. I went that next Monday to NTB and got them to align it. Alignment came out fine. Well the very next day I noticed the steering wheel was off again (cockeyed left) and it was pulling hard to the right if I took my hands off the steering wheel. So I took it back to them last night.

A different guy does the alignment and again, all seems good. They hand me the keys, I leave and not 5 minutes down the road when I made a left turn the wheel went cockeyed again left. I made a U-turn and headed straight back to NTB and when I made a right turn then the wheel was straight again. The service guy said let's go for a drive. He couldn't explain why left turns would throw it off and a right turn would fix itself (as far as the steering wheel goes). He puts it back on the lift, checks the entire front suspension for ANY play whatsover, but it's all tight.

He told me to come back Thursday so his "lead tech" could take a look at it. Any thoughts as to what could cause the issue?

The 3" Rough Country kit had the following:
-longer coils
-longer shocks
-radius arm drop bracket
-track bar drop bracket
-rear 2" block

Here is a printout of my alignment sheet the second time.

Who did the install ?

Did you install the rectangular offset bolt inserts in the trac bar drop bracket? Those would let the trac bar shift enough under load to cause what you're describing and might not be noticable on a rack if the bolt is tight.

SEABEE08FX4 said:

Who did the install ?

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I did it myself.

BBottoms said:

Did you install the rectangular offset bolt inserts in the trac bar drop bracket? Those would let the trac bar shift enough under load to cause what you're describing and might not be noticable on a rack if the bolt is tight.

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That's a good thought. Yes, I did install the rectangular washer deal on both sides of the trac bar, but I'll check tonight to make sure they are still tight.

Double check all of your torque specs then, the track bar alone requires 400 ft lbs at the frame side, radius arm bolts require 350 ft lbs so if you don't have a 3/4" torque wrench to know what your torquing it too chances are its too loose.

Oh wow, I had no idea they had to be torqued that much. I'll have to ask around for a torque wrench that goes that high.

I bet that explains the off and on squeaking noise I have as well.

How do you know what all the torque specs are? Chances are I need to go back over the entire front suspension and re-torque them all.

I'll list it out below.

Axle side of track bar is 150 ft lbs.

Frame side of track bar is 406 ft lbs.

3/4" radius arm bolts are 350 ft lbs.

Radius arm drop bracket bolts are 50 ft lbs. ( based on 3/8" hardware )

U-Bolts are 150 ft lbs.

Shocks are 35 ft lbs.

Also everything should be retorqued after 500 miles.

One other thing to check is your front axle U joints on each side. Even in 2 wheel drive they still free spin some. I has the exact thing going on and found one side binding. Some times after turning it would pull hard to the side. If I jerked the wheel back or made a turn in the other direction it would correct itself.

Awesome, thank you very much Eric!

I checked out in the shop at work and they are tracking down a torque wrench for me because mine doesn't go past 200 ft/lbs. They said they should have one that goes to 750 ft/lbs so I can tighten everything up front after work today.

morepower02 said:

One other thing to check is your front axle U joints on each side. Even in 2 wheel drive they still free spin some. I has the exact thing going on and found one side binding. Some times after turning it would pull hard to the side. If I jerked the wheel back or made a turn in the other direction it would correct itself.

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Good to know as well. I'll check that when I'm under it later.

Your caster is way off. Needs to be below 4. And you need a little more caster on the right to compensate for the drifting.

I've read the caster should be between 4.5-5.5 degrees. From the first time I got it aligned last week to now that 5 hasn't changed at all.

Musclemckeester said:

Awesome, thank you very much Eric!

I checked out in the shop at work and they are tracking down a torque wrench for me because mine doesn't go past 200 ft/lbs. They said they should have one that goes to 750 ft/lbs so I can tighten everything up front after work today.

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No worries. If that doesn't do the trick you may need a set of alignment cams.

SEABEE08FX4 said:

I'll list it out below.

Axle side of track bar is 150 ft lbs.

Frame side of track bar is 406 ft lbs.

3/4" radius arm bolts are 350 ft lbs.

Radius arm drop bracket bolts are 50 ft lbs. ( based on 3/8" hardware )

U-Bolts are 150 ft lbs.

Shocks are 35 ft lbs.

Also everything should be retorqued after 500 miles.

Click to expand...

Eric, may I ask where you got these numbers from? I unfortunately found out the hard way that 350 ft/lbs of torque on a 5/8" bolt is WAY too much because I broke a radius arm bolt. I then started talking to one of our guys from work who has been in the industry for 30+ years. He said there are standards for bolt torque specs. Anyway, he sent me a chart and the maximum specs for a grade 8 bolt was 212 ft/lbs torque dry. So I got new bolts from the dealer to replace the 2 others that I over-tightened before the one I broke. I got them torqued down to about 200 ft/lbs now.

Back to my issue at hand on the alignment though. I had NTB look at it again last night by their "lead tech" and what he found looks to be an issue with the drag link and possibly the track bar. The drag link he found to be the source of the steering notice I've been hearing.

I called Rough Country this morning and described the issues with one of their techs. He said it has to be the caster is off, but he couldn't tell me what it should be. Does anybody know what the caster SHOULD be? Mine is at 5.0 both sides.

caster inst going to cause the left turn issue and the steering wheel problem

a trac bar letting the axle shift would cause the steering wheel off center but shouldn't cause excessive effort in steering

something in a bind would cause both

what did the tech say was suspect with the track bar ?

It isn't hard to steer at all. In fact I'm still running the factory steering stabilizer. I have duals waiting install, but I wanted to wait until this issue was worked out before installing them.

He thought the track bar was pulling on the passenger side, as if it was too short. When I talked to Rough Country this morning and told the tech about the track bar, he said it is supposed to be pulling on that joint on the passenger side. I don't think he understood what I meant.

I don't think the trac bar ball joint is your issue unless it's badly worn out.

I can only think of four things that could cause your steering wheel center to shift back and forth: 1)slop in trac bar/joint/bracket 2)slop in control arm mounting points/bushings 3)slop in drag link/pitman arm/rod end 4) something in the rear axle mounting that is lose and shifting back and forth causing 'dog-legging' and an apparent shift in steering center

Musclemckeester said:

Eric, may I ask where you got these numbers from? I unfortunately found out the hard way that 350 ft/lbs of torque on a 5/8" bolt is WAY too much because I broke a radius arm bolt. I then started talking to one of our guys from work who has been in the industry for 30+ years. He said there are standards for bolt torque specs. Anyway, he sent me a chart and the maximum specs for a grade 8 bolt was 212 ft/lbs torque dry. So I got new bolts from the dealer to replace the 2 others that I over-tightened before the one I broke. I got them torqued down to about 200 ft/lbs now.

Back to my issue at hand on the alignment though. I had NTB look at it again last night by their "lead tech" and what he found looks to be an issue with the drag link and possibly the track bar. The drag link he found to be the source of the steering notice I've been hearing.

I called Rough Country this morning and described the issues with one of their techs. He said it has to be the caster is off, but he couldn't tell me what it should be. Does anybody know what the caster SHOULD be? Mine is at 5.0 both sides.

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That's the spec for a 3/4" bolt. Not sure why you would have a smaller bolt in yours. Should look just like this one.

Also here is Carli's install instructions stating the same specs. I was going off of memory though. I've probably done somewhere between 60-70 Ford Lifts and never had that happen before. Whens the last time that wrench was calibrated ?

http://www.carlisuspension.com/Inst...ructions - 4.5 - CS-FORDPINTOP-05(08)(11).pdf

Musclemckeester said:

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In this pic I can see the drag link rotational stop is not even in the coupler ( the rusty piece that looks like it got bent out of the way ), that is there to keep the slop out of it and prevent the coupler from spinning if it were to ever come loose.