Rear End Alignment / Adjustment?

[Matthew Jeschke]

Okay, so I'm a tad confused. I installed a new rear end and now my truck doesn't drive straight. It's chewing up the front passenger side tire. My tahoe is a project truck and still needs a few repairs to front before I pay for a shop alignment, so I decided to do the string measure / alignment. I haven't adjusted anything because I don't know how to adjust what I found.

Toe was fine, Caster was fine (I checked with phone level, good enough for now). Not sure how to check camber...

Long story short everything looked good minus, the rear end. My rear end appears to be offset 2.5 centimeters to the passenger side.

I'm not sure what's nominal / considered a properly centered rear end. Additionally, what's another way to measure it, say based off frame?

Truck frame looks perfect, body as well. Not sure what is up here.

 

[swathdiver]

Something's up with the panhard bar. That's what centers the axle. Couple of guys on here have wrote about adjusting theirs, some with the Spohn adjustable one.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Something's up with the panhard bar. That's what centers the axle. Couple of guys on here have wrote about adjusting theirs, some with the Spohn adjustable one.

Yeah I kind of wondered if that wasn't it myself. If maybe there's a slightly different geometry on the standard Tahoe rear end versus Z71. Either way adjustable would be a bit help lol

 

[swathdiver]

Yeah I kind of wondered if that wasn't it myself. If maybe there's a slightly different geometry on the standard Tahoe rear end versus Z71. Either way adjustable would be a bit help lol

@randeez Randy comes to mind. I forget who else has them.

 

[randeez]

lifted? the stock panhard basically travels on a radius from the frame. the higher (or lower) you go the "shorter" it gets and would pull the rear end to the passenger side

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

lifted? the stock panhard basically travels on a radius from the frame. the higher (or lower) you go the "shorter" it gets and would pull the rear end to the passenger side

It is stock height at rear. Front has keys, but i lowered front back to stock height.

I must have done something funkie when tightening the bolts when i installed the new rear end.

I just wung torque... couldnt find specs but certain i didnt load the bushings correctly... i probably over tightened them. However i am not sure that would effect the rear end to that extent ?

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Ah ha! I found it a couple weeks ago. I understand this issue but never experienced it before. It's super trivial and I should have noticed it earlier.

I'd mixed up tire axle sets. I got one of the rear tires paired with a front tire on the front of the car. When I got the tires matched back up it drove straight as an arrow.

I believe I've mixed tires before simple because of a bad tire or new one needing bought etc. However, the guy I bought this truck from used and abused his tires. I noticed on closer inspection the rear tires had completely different wear pattern from fronts.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Ah ha! I found it a couple weeks ago. I understand this issue but never experienced it before. It's super trivial and I should have noticed it earlier.

I'd mixed up tire axle sets. I got one of the rear tires paired with a front tire on the front of the car. When I got the tires matched back up it drove straight as an arrow.

I believe I've mixed tires before simple because of a bad tire or new one needing bought etc. However, the guy I bought this truck from used and abused his tires. I noticed on closer inspection the rear tires had completely different wear pattern from fronts.

I had a similar situation with my express van. I put a rear tire on the front and it clocked my steering wheel. I've never had that happen before. Put it back and everything was fine.

 

[Scottydoggs]

my old 03 2500 pick up, it had bfg 33's 12.5 wide on it, by 5,000 miles both front tires were cupped on the outer threads, id rotate backs to front, keeping left side on the left, rights on the right their whole life.

the back tires wear perfectly flat, when rotated, it was like i just got an alignment. till they started cupping again of course.

i could see how swapping one rear to the front could mess up how it drives being theres more tire touching the ground most likely.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Yeah the wear pattern on my BFG KO2's isn't pretty. Not sure if it's an issue with those tires or how the previous owner cared for / used them.

One axle set was nicely warn evenly across the thread. The other set was warn more on the outside edge than inside edge. It's almost like the camber was really heavy on them, tilting the tires out. However, when I do a rough camber check with a digital level it shows about 1 degree of camber tilted in at top of tire on front suspension. Go figure.

I bought two new General grabber at2 tires to match the two I put on the back. The KO2s really need disposed of. However, I'm replacing ball joints yet on the front and will get everything aligned after although it's pretty darn straight now.

Curious do any of you guys feel like the steering is really sensitive on these trucks? I get lots of feedback from the road in this truck. I don't particularly like that. Not sure if it's my tires and or lack of a steering damper on this truck. I also have a corvette and aliken the steering feedback to that of the Corrvette but don't like it in my truck.