Guys,

I have been struggling with getting a decent alignment done on my Charger for the past two years! I have a local shop do it here and they had gotten it pretty close but since then I swapped the steering box to a FF stage III which threw it off a bit but I just drove it.

I have since added FF 1.06 T-bars and had to disassemble the front suspension to get the Bilstien shocks installed so I wiped out whatever alignment was there...

I took the car in yesterday to the same shop and gave them specs that Matt @ FF gave me. They worked on it for a good chunk of yesterday and got it as "close" as they could.

It seems to drive fine/straight at low speeds <45mph but, on the highway it seems "darty" and seems to pull pretty hard to left...almost where you have to run with the wheel turned 10* to the right to stay straight!

Here are the specs that they gave me. Do these look right? What would cause the hard pull to the left at high speed? I called the shop and they mentioned it could be radial pull but I call BS on that as it didn't do that before I did this work two weeks ago.

Does anything stand out in these specs as "wrong"? I am not an alignment guy...I know the basics but I know that all the variables (camber/castor/toe/etc.) affect each other greatly.

Do I need a new shop? What should I do to get this mess fixed?? I really want this car's suspension done for the spring and I'm tired of paying the "specialty price" for multiple alignments. Thanks!

The difference in left and right SAI (Steering axis inclination) looks pretty high.

Are all the bushings still good?
Has the car been in an accident at one time?
Are you sure you have 2 exact same front wheels on the car?

Bushings are all good. They are all PST Polygraphite bushings and Energy Suspension k-frame mount bushings. I don't think this is the issue as I didn't have the problem before the most recent alignment.

I don't know if the car has ever been in an accident but I don't think so. I have owned it for 11 years so not since then.

Yes, both wheels are the same.

What would cause a wierd SAI?

I did have to pull the caliper/rotor/hub on the driver side to replace the lower BJ dust boot. However, if this was a stuck caliper, I would think the wheel would turn left when you let it go. This is where the wheel will pull straight but the car will go left unless you turn the wheel and hold it right.

Shim the steering box per the manual to get the SIA in from what I remember.... or slot the holes for the idler...Tim

So I am trying to reason through this...

I didn't have this issue until the most recent round of upgrades (shocks + torsion bars) and the alignment. Therefore I don't think I have suspension parts that are bent or damaged from a wreck.

I found the sheet from the alignment I had done over a year ago (before I did all the front end upgrades) and while I got a lot less caster, the SAI wasn't so "off".

The only think I can think of is that when I was jacking up the LCA (unloaded) and I caught the zerk fitting on the lower ball joint. I noticed this (bottom of ball joint) was bent up a little and when I lowered the jack, it went right back down. The ball joint seems fine. I have no idea if this could be my problem but I thought I'd mention it.

Should I just give up on trying to get the extra positive caster to get the SAI back in line????

Classic not enough caster problem.

Mopar suspensions confuse alignment techs unless they are old dinosaurs or Mopar lovers. Find a different shop or you'll never get it right. Call around till you find one who's done old Mopars and understands the procedure in the FSM.

Is the specified range representing factory specs or your custom specs?

Toe (toe in I hope!) looks on the low side of spec. Some toe in helps stability. I remember toe in in inches... 1/8" to 3/16" toe in at the tires being in the ball park.

Positive caster helps stability. Factory specs were near zero. If you have 2-3 degrees positive caster, "should" be OK.

Camber I don not understand. You want some negative camber in a handling application to help the tires "bite". Yours shows positive. Between -.5 degree and -.75 degree is in the ballpark.

Suggest you clarify the measurements with your shop and re-do or find a new shop.

I agree that you may need a different shop.
On all classic Mopars, I like to run the following:
1/2 degree NEG Camber.
3-5 degrees POS Caster.
1/8" toe in.

The spec range on those sheets is factory specs not what I gave them. Matt at FF said to do 1/8th to 1/16th inch toe in. These guys said their machine was in degrees so they didn't know how to convert.

The car felt a lot better with the first set of specs to be honest. That pull to the left at speed is kinda scary.

So if we can't hit those numbers what is the most important one to try and hit? I got the caster but apparently I lost the camber and toe...

https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AnSvG3B18vJUzX_.G1XDyR6bvZx4?fr=yfp-t-901-s&toggle=1&fp=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&p=front%20end%20alignment%20inchs%20to%20degrees%20conversion

click here;

convert

You should be able to hit any toe... just get it where you want it.

Camber and caster involve trade-off. At least get "some" negative camber and "some" positive caster... as close as possible to the specs suggested above. Depending on particulars of your car, you may be able to hit the recommended specs or maybe not.

Something is definetely wrong. You must have negative camber. Do you have offset upper arm bushings that were not installed correctly? The SAI is built into the spindle. Do you have the same spindles left and right? One may be bent. If the shop is using these specs and can't figure out what's going on, it's time for someone more competent.

Ok guys, update here!

I took the car to a Firestone here in town. When I spoke to the service manager there a few weeks back I mentioned the car and he seemed to know a thing or two about Mopars. He even claims to have owned a 71 Charger with a 440-6 that he sold back in the 80's...anyways I digress...

When I pulled in this morning I popped the hood and he had me turn the wheel while he looked and low and behold the steering box is LOOSE! The sucker was moving probably 3/8" or so when I turned the wheel. No wonder the car is all over the road!

What makes me really steamed about this is that this other shop supposedly spent all day working on this, charged me over $100, and let the car go out the door with a loose box.

Anyways, I will pray that was my only problem and this car can get aligned properly now. I feel a bit embarrassed as I put the box in last summer and I never caught that. The again it's hard to catch that when you work on them by yourself without a helper.

Oh well, I will keep you guys posted! Thanks for all the suggestions so far!

Good catch.
I have made it a point to either use lock washers, Locktite or both on the steering box bolts. I have had them come loose too. While this explains the spooky steering feel, it still leaves many questions unanswered regarding the alignment. I didn't mean to "shortchange" you regarding my earlier post about alignment specs. Clearly, you need some negative camber in any street driven Mopar that you want to handle well. Your car was built when Radial tires were just getting more popular and the OEM alignment settings were not much different from a Bias ply tire equipped car. Drone auto techs that simply align old cars to old specs should apply for work at Wal Mart. The rules have changed. We can make an old car handle as well as a new one with better tires and an updated suspension as long as the alignment is updated as well.
Negative camber on its own will not result in increased tire wear with radial tires as long as it does not exceed .75 degree. It is excessive toe that eats tires! Negative camber helps straight line stability as well as cornering ability. Positive caster is essential too. More caster means the steering wheel will want to remain straight. Turning effort increases, as well as the steering wheel wanting to return to center after a turn. You WANT this! The amount of caster you can get is limited with the stock eccentric bolts and standard bushings. Aftermarket tubular adjustable arms add a huge amount of adjustability.
Toe IN helps keep the car stable, wander less and it also offsets the drag the tires have. As the tires roll, they may want to push back, causing a "toe-out" situation. Adding a bit of "toe-in" is sort of a preload against that.

Did they not supply the thrust angle reading or did I miss it? The other thing I see in your specs is cross camber. The shop should be able to get this to zero. Some shops use cross camber to correct for road crown (how much road crown or "peaking" of the roads can vary by state). Cross camber will definitely make the car pull one way or the other. Good shops won't use cross camber to correct for road crown since camber is a tire wearing angle. If needed, cross caster can be used. If I remember right, the rule of thumb is the car will pull to the side with the least positive camber and the most positive caster. I agree with what everyone else says, get the most positive caster you can get out of the alignment. It makes the car most stable on the highway. New cars use around 8-10 degrees positive caster. The mopar front end is pretty easy to align (if the parts are in good shape), though it takes some time. I've aligned my car plenty of times and a shop that can't even out the camber is just lazy.

By looking at the uneven SIA , I would suspect either the wheels were not locked , brake pedal applied , while doing the castor sweep and or the alignment heads slipped .Probably both , also the fact that the thrust angle is very important and not indicated on the print out is worrisome for me.The SAI for these cars is right about 7 deg for both sides .

As I recall, torque specs on my e body steering box mounting bolts is like 85 to 100 pounds and is a bit hard to achieve using almost required flex sockets. Hopefully a torque wrench was used, if so should have held,,,,unless female threads or male bolts are in poor condition. Perhaps you can check this out before closing out.

Very common for the nuts welded on the K-member to strip out or spin from breaking their welds.

Who originally put the steering box in?

It's not part of the procedure to re-torque the steering box nuts when you do an alignment. Maybe the box got loose after the alignment. Tough to prove on way or the other.

I am not going to say that the first shop who did the alignment loosened the box but it is suspect that the car never had that wandering at high speeds until they did the work.

I originally put the steering box in over a year ago. The same shop did the alignment then and got it close and it didn't have this issue until the recent round of work...