shim shedder

[jwmbishop]

I have done many alignments in my time. I have never had one come back with all of the shims gone. very frustrating to find myself on the consumer end.

 

I took the C10 in and they set it all nicely - it handled very well until the kid came home and complained it was pulling hard right. All of the shims on the upper fwd right side were gone (sitting in the driveway it had about 5 degrees neg camber and 3 degrees neg caster). Back it went - they did not charge me - but it was not as good as the prior alignment (spec sheet showed .1 neg camber - in range but noticeably different than the prev .9 neg). Today I came home and found three shims in the driveway. This time the REAR set fell out.

 

Am I missing something or is the tech a little lazy on the torque wrench. Could there be something wrong with the truck itself?

[MrX]

It may be that the bolts are streching or thay did not torque them.

[NightFlyer]

Don't know what they had to do on the alignment- but IF they removed shims, could have gotten to dirty threads that stopped bolts from tightening properly- I'm sure everyone has heard that torque values are for clean lightly lubricated threads... depending on age of truck, maybe the threads ain't that clean anymore???

 

BUT ALSO- don't think I've ever used a torque wrench on suspension (OK- shame on me...) and I've never had that happen- so it could also be a little forgetfulness kicking in (real bad case to happen twice on the same side)

[jwmbishop]

According to the 1st print out they had to take out neg camber - which is add shims. I'm thinking dirty shims the first time , then had to back off the rear nut when putting the front shims back and forgot to retighten it.

But aside from that - is it possible that we are twisting the frame rail and thats causing the controlling force to become more perpendicular to the bolt? I torqued to 75 lbs (just to get it tight enough to drive back to the alignment rack) with no pops groans or sponge - so am sure the bolts are not stretching. And I have never used a torque wrench on em before either - just lots of push with a long 1/2 dr ratchet.

 

At this point I am thinking I may be better off tooling up to do the alignment myself. Time is $$. Atr least a bubble guage will have future use unlike the time I have already lost to this.

 

The thing may go moot though - just bought a 57 chev p/u. The C10 better change it's attitude or its outta here.

[jwmbishop]

New mechanic found the issue. This is an outboard mounted ctrl arm - there is a quarter inch thick radiused piece that goes out ward against the ctrl arm pivot (nestling into a counter radius on the pivot) and the shims go between it and the frame. They were putting half an inch of shims between the radius and the pivot - the radius was spreading the shims and loosening. Handles better than it ever has now.

 

I looked at it and missed it completely. Thought they just had a big shim in the middle of the stack.