69427

I made some front suspension geometry changes the other day, and of course had to realign everything (home alignment). The car drives nice, but with a slight pull to the right. Although the test drive was on some county roads with a bit of a crown, I suspect that part of the pull is due to an imperfect alignment. Please confirm/clear up my understanding of things. It's my understanding that if the caster differs from side to side the steering will pull (if there's toe-in) to the side that has more caster.
(I don't have a caster gauge yet. It's on my list of future tools.)

Is my understanding correct?

Thanks guys.

Bill Dearborn

How did you set your camber? You can use the same gauge you used to read camber to read caster.

Bill

69427

I've just got a simple digital angle meter I hold up to the wheel to read the camber. It's magnetic, but the wheel shape and material (aluminum obviously) doesn't allow me to just stick and forget the meter on the wheel. And, I'm not convinced I'm holding the angle meter exactly the same way each time I check the readings, hence my thought that the caster settings are not identical.

Like I mentioned before, a caster gauge is on my short list.

69427

I looked at several alignment sites and the word is that the car will pull to the side with less caster, not more. The mechanics/physics made sense to me the other way around, so I'm going to have to figure out the force mechanics of the correct answer.

RogerT

Your car will pull to the side with the least positive caster. The left side is usually given about 1/2 degree less positive caster to compensate for road crown. Most people never feel it.

Camber should be set even.
Toe-in does not cause a pull.

Hope this helps.

Roger T

Don Keefhardt

Grassy-field alignments -

You can measure caster with a camber gauge.

First, crank the wheels 20deg to one side...measure camber on a wheel, then crank it back straight, and 20deg. the other way...measure camber again. Calculate the difference between the two...and multiply by 1.4....that's the caster of that wheel.