I may be off a lil cause it was done by eyeball, but with the truck at ride height, (fender bout an inch over the tire), and the tires looking pretty straight and even... when I lay it out I get a crazy amount of toe in. So much that the tires hit the back sides of the fenders. I'm talking like 3 inches of toe in per side. Factory arms and 3 inch spindle.

I have a bumpsteer kit on my Mustang that spaces the tierod off the spindle a lil but not sure if they make something like that for a 1 ton or how safe it would be.

Any solutions that I've missed in my searches?

its probably the spindles. i had drop spindles on my truck and it did that. put the stock ones back on and it fixed it. reason for that is some drop spindles re-locate the location of the tie-rod. not meant for bagged trucks. i would put stock spindles on it if possible and work on re-baggin it to lay. what bodystyle is the truck?

Ohhhh never thought to check to see if the spindles were cast different. It's a 92 shitbox.
Hate to go back and chop everything back up to rebag. Already painted the frame for reassembly. Might just machine up a tierod spacer like my mustang has to correct it with a big heims.

You got me so curious I ran up to the garage to measure... nope, drop spindles are cast just like factory for the tie rod mounts.

Tempted to cut my frame off right in from of the upper a arm mounts and raise it 1 1/2" or so then just cut my frame horns off and lower them another 1 1/2" to compensate. Would give me a nice angle on my steering shaft as well if I did that.

The kit that I'm talking about duplicating.

you say they are cast the same.. are the tie rods mounts tapered the same? you didnt have to flip the tierod to make it work? when i installed the belltechs the directions said the tierods had to be flipped upside down to work. i tried that.. when laid out my tires would hit the front front or the fender. as it lifted, they would turn it really bad. looked like they turned atleast 30 degrees. so that wouldnt work, so i bought a tie-rod reamer from speedway motors, stuck it in the tierod hole and marked on the reamer how far it went in, and reamed the opposite side so i could put the tierod back in the stock direction. because the spindles were designed to have the tierods run the opposite direction the actual mounting point was about an inch different. doin this made it driveable. but it still had bump steer cuz the tierod angle was slighlty off. so i ended up puttin the stock spindles back on and re-did the upper bag mount. so much happier with the result. u said you could "z" the front frame section to compensate. that should def. work. i hope this helps out.. good luck!

Man, those spacers look screwy. I'm no engineer but it looks like they'd want to break off just below where it goes in the spindle from the bottom. Maybe OK for a light car like a Mustang, but I wouldn't want that stuff on my dually. Having a tie rod bust off is no fun...ask the guy it has happened to (me)



Happened right after I jumped off hauling ass down the freeway, lucky me that was my '96 ext cab wrecker.

Richard

Yup the factory spindles and the drop spindles are identical right down the taper direction. I actually measured my toe in today and set it right at ride height with a tape measure. Was out more than my eye could tell, still toes in way too much laid out tho.

Yeah I've put 10k hard hard miles on the Mustang with that kit with no signs of wear or fatigue... but a bagged 1ton just isn't a Mustang and makes me scared. I'll prolly just section a chunk of the frame to move the steering up a lil.

That's a close call on the breakage, buddy of mine just bought a 5/7 dropped 2000 Silverado at auction, drove it 5 hours home. Jumped in it the next morning to leave, backed it up 3 feet, and lower pass. balljoint came apart. You guys must have the same guardian angel.

For some reason it seems like the ball joints like to come apart at low speed most often. I've towed more than a few people where the ball joint just popped in a parking lot. Man, it's a pain getting the boom under the truck when it's basically sitting on the control arm, and the wheel is flopping around.

Now this guy clearly wasn't as lucky when his ball joint let go, dig the birds nest of wheel shavings...




Richard