Alignment facts

Did your rotate your steers side to side? What is your caster at now? What is your cross caster? Did you align all axles or just the steer?

 

A lot of times pulling can be attributed to the rear axles out of alignment. Not always in the front end.

 

Bad out of round steer tires can also make a truck pull to one side or the other. I just had this happen with my truck. It was pulling to the left but also had some shimmy/shake. I thought the rear axles might have been out so I took it to where I get alignments done and was going to have 3 axles done. I told them the issues. They spent about 15 minutes with the front end off the ground checking everything. All 3 axles were still exactly as they had set them about a year ago and in perfect alignment. The culprit was obvious when they spun my steers at about 50 mph. Badly out of round tires. They sent me on my way, no charge. I replaced the steers and also one of my steer shocks and one of the rear shocks was bad so replaced all of those. Problem solved truck runs true and no shimmy. Tires can do weird things. When I first installed that set 80,000 miles ago they were fine. Over time they got out of round. They were dynamically balanced with ceramic beads too.

 

I did balanced the tires and align three axles. The truck was pulling to the right. I rotated the tires side to side and started pulling to the left. He’s got mishelin, still good tires, but when I balanced them I noticed the rims are not in a perfect round shape. Perhaps bad rims caused damage on the tires and that’s the reason the truck is pulling.

 

You really have to look at the tire and remaining tread across the face of the tire. Many times the tread will be much higher on side, and lower on the other side of the same tire. The tire will always pull to the side with the lower tread. So if your outer shoulder on the right steer is worn down more the inner shoulder, it will pull to the right. This is why when you flip them side to side it will pull left.

 

Thanks for the thread. I realize it's a few years old, but you've given me a ton of solid information to think about. Particularly the sleeves.

 

Question here for 2012 Cascadia
Parts replaced:

Steer Tires - July '18​

Shocks - Aug '18
Steer King Pins - Aug '18
Partial 3 axle alignment - Nov '18
Tie Rod/ends - Jan'19
3 Axle alignment - Jan'19
New Drive tires - Feb'19

In November I had a 3 axle alignment done with worn out tires trying to "buy time". The rear axle driver side had about 1 1/2 - 2 inches of shims stacked. Rear drive axle was off 0.25" w/shims. Then when it came to the steer axle the Tech had told me that I needed new tie rod ends and couldn't finish the steer axle alignment. So at a later date (Jan) I ended up having to replace the tie rod (and radiator) and get another 3 axle alignment (still with worn out tires).

About a week ago (Feb) I finally got a new set of drive tires and had a seal replaced on top the steer gear box because it was leaking. Now the truck just drifts. It doesn't pull to one side. Lets say if weight was shifted to the right on a left curve the truck would slightly jerk to the left more, then when I try to counter steer to the right the truck would jerk to the right slightly. And the truck would teeter pretty hard opposite when counter steering.
The truck would wander side to side when holding the steering wheel straight.

Would this issue be caused by the steering gearbox? Alignment? Worn out leaf springs?