Rear wheel alignment on H2?

[JDLarue]

OK, I've been given two different answers to this question. The service writer at the dealership told me you have to align the rear wheels and the guys at Les Schwab said you don't. He said there is no way to align the rear wheels. Somebody is full of @#%$ but I don't know which. To tell the truth when I look at the truck from the back it does look like the right rear wheel is cambered in a little at the bottom. Does anyone know?

Thanks

[tomp]

There is no way to do align on rear. You can have bent axle or housing or both. Raise up rear with H2 in neutral and rotate wheen by hand. It shoud rotate all the way around smoothly and not bind. if it binds, that will indicate a problem.

[JDLarue]

There is no way to do align on rear. You can have bent axle or housing or both. Raise up rear with H2 in neutral and rotate wheen by hand. It shoud rotate all the way around smoothly and not bind. if it binds, that will indicate a problem.


OK, thnx tomp.

[ROX]

You live in Livermore? Did you take you're rig to Sacramento or somewhere else? Just curious.

The folks at Les Schwab can do the alignment as easily as the dealership, and probably for less money. (especially since they probably work on a lot of farm trucks and such) If you haven't had warranty front end work, I'd take it there. The service writer at the dealership obviously doesn't know anything about it, not that it means it wouldn't be done right.

Our dealership doesn't have a rack that can hold an H2 up safely. I guess it's not rated for the weight. They send it out to another shop to have it aligned. After I found that out, I just take it to my favorite tire shop.

One more thing. When I do need it aligned it's usually just the Toe. The shop I take mine to charge me less because he didn't need to adjust the camber/castor and he got his alignment rack back sooner than if they'd had to do a whole alignment. Maybe you can use this info to save a couple of bucks.

[gr8hntr]

rear alignment are done on front wheel drive car
and are done by shiming the struts
from what i have been told

[JDLarue]

Phil, I guess Les Schwab is less than half baked then cause they didn't say anything about aligning the rear wheels to the front wheels. They just said there is no alignment for the rear. And I don't know how you do it either. I've really picked your brain today so maybe one more pick wouldn't be out of line. What do you mean by aligning the back wheels to the front wheels and how's it done?

[ROX]

Phil,

If the thrust axis is not 0, say it turns out to be .1, is that far enough off to cause any issues? (I haven't noticed any, yet)

My axel got tweaked when I let a jeeper winch to my H2 on the Rubicon.(it's my own fault for not finding a better angle):o

[ROX]

Define tweaked?Tweaked: When I heard a loud POP while he was winching the jeep. I let him do it at a 90 degree angle to my car instead of straightening out. Afterward the rear swaybar bushings were physically bent to the side. (the links were still straight)

Just out of interest, how did someone bend your axle by winching to your truck?If you're saying thrust axis is a measurement of a bent axel, and not a measurement of the rear axel being straight on the frame, I probably don't have a problem with it. I noticed on my alignment sheet tho, that it was zero before the Rubicon, and it's off by .1 after the Rubicon. I don't think it's anything serious, I was just curious about that part of an alignment.

I guess if the sensors are on the wheel, it doesn't have anything to do with the frame.:o :confused:

[JDLarue]

Phil,
Thanks, I read the article and it makes sense. I got out the report Les Schwab gave me for the alignment and they DID do all four wheels. Unfortunately all those numbers are just jiberish to me so I don't know if it's good or bad. Do you know how to interpret what they all mean?

JD

[JDLarue]

Not without seeing them ;)

Usually if any are in bold or red that means they are out of tolerance.

Phil,
Well, here they are: I guess the good news is none of these were in red, but it's still jibberish to me. Guess I should have asked them for an explanation. Does this stuff mean anything to you??

Rear left: Rear right:

actual before actual before
-0.1* -0.1* (camber) -0.3* -0.3*
-0.11* -0.07* (toe) -0.02* -0.01*


REAR
actual before
cross camber 0.2* 0.2*
total toe -0.13* -0.8*
thrust angle -0.04* -0.03*

[JDLarue]

[QUOTE=JDLarue]Phil,
Well, here they are: I guess the good news is none of these were in red, but it's still jibberish to me. Guess I should have asked them for an explanation. Does this stuff mean anything to you??

Rear left: Rear right:

actual before actual before
-0.1* -0.1* (camber) -0.3* -0.3*
-0.11* -0.07* (toe) -0.02* -0.01*


REAR
actual before
cross camber 0.2* 0.2*
total toe -0.13* -0.8*
thrust angle -0.04* -0.03*


I had these numbers all nice and spaced out and then when I hit the submit button it squished 'em all together. I hope they still make sense.