Had alignment done, camber/caster off

Hi All,

I just replaced my steering box bracket, tie rod ends, and steering stabilizer. I took it to my local shop for alignment.

The guy said they got it mostly aligned, but that my camber and caster is off and that I will need shims and an offset ball joint to bring them back inline. He said its not critical and if I don't mind the way it drives then I will be ok. It pulls to the right a bit, but all in all not bad.

I'm just curious how bad these numbers are, and if it sounds like something worth trying to tackle on my own eventually. It's a stock DD that sees no offroad use. As I said, I don't mind how it drives, but if this is getting into potential damage or degraded performance then I am more willing to try and fix myself (they want $658 total to fix).

Here's the #'s (I may have my left/right backwards?):

Front Left Camber (-0.6*)
Front Right Camber (-0.4*)
Front Left Caster (6.4*)
Front Right Caster (6.7*)
Front Left Toe (0.12*)
Front Right Toe (0.13*)

Rear Left Camber (0.0*)
Read Right Camber (-0.1*)
Rear Left Toe (0.06*)
Read Right Toe (0.25*)

Total Toe (0.31*)
Thrust Angle (-0.09*)

Thrust Angle and Front Left Camber are yellow (bolded), everything else is green.

Thanks peeps!

Looking online, this really doesn't look bad at all. Guess I'm just looking for peace of mind

Camber isn't far out enough to worry about replacing ball joints, unless they're worn.

Caster is a bit high for a stock height Jeep. If you has adjustable control arms, I'd go down to about 4 degrees for stock height. If it's lifted, say 4.5", then caster is about right. However, the real question is whether the driveshaft angles are correct. The yoke on the axle u-joint should be pointing towards the centering ball on the double cardon joint. Unless you have the inner "C"s rotated, it ends up being a compromise when lifting the Jeep, between proper caster, and proper driveshaft alignment.

David Bricker / SYR

There is no stock caster and camber adjustment on stock jeeps. I got that same story 17 years ago, and since then I only adjust toe in (do it myself now), and only if I replace worn parts, when I find them or feel early death wobble signs and go hunting for worn parts. None of mine are lifted, all DDs.

Never had any tire wear issues. Have 5 of them, one since 2002.

I would not worry about it.

Cool bananas, thanks fellas.

shmicah said:

Cool bananas, thanks fellas.

Click to expand...

LOL, are we dating ourselves? LOL

Ecomike said:

There is no stock caster and camber adjustment on stock jeeps

Click to expand...

Camber no caster yes.
The problem is most alignment shops are to lazy to break out the shims and adjust the caster.

Ecomike said:

There is no stock caster and camber adjustment on stock jeeps. I got that same story 17 years ago, and since then I only adjust toe in (do it myself now), and only if I replace worn parts, when I find them or feel early death wobble signs and go hunting for worn parts. None of mine are lifted, all DDs.

Never had any tire wear issues. Have 5 of them, one since 2002.

I would not worry about it.

Click to expand...

Caster is adjustable by adding or removing shims behind the lower control arms or by using adjustable control arms.

Caster and camber are both adjustable by using offset ball joints. They are available with .5 degrees up to 2.5 degrees. The lower ball joints are the preferred but upper joints could also be had.