Fld120 3 axle alignment

Just wondering where to take my truck for the three axle alignment.

I could take it to Freightliner of Philadelphia, stangel Brothers in Allentown, or there is a shop somewhere out toward York PA that has MD alignment. I can try to check with some of the spring shops but they too are about an hour away.

The closest is about an hour away and the farthest is about an hour and 20 minutes maybe an hour and a half.

I'm not sure what other shops are around here that do that. I think Freightliner wanted an extra $100 or so over the others.

What have you guys had success with?

 

Frame and suspension shops tend to be the only good ones at alignment. You could use a tape measure and do just as good a job as anyone else.

 

I’m not familiar with PA but MD Alignment has a shop locator on their website.

 

The one shop we go to for alignment in the east coast is Peters Springs in Downtown Baltimore.

Now it's been over 30 years for me since I last took my third tractor past there to get alignment. My FLD120 in the late 90's was the 4th truck to need front end work. Its always been weak in that front end. And the Owner had a shop big enough to do the alignment right there in Arkansas. He did a good job.

 

How do you do that with a three axle alignment?

 

The same way you would with a two axle, just adds another axle distance to measure. Basically an alignment is squaring all 3 axles.
A basic 3 axle laser alignment on something like a hunter machine is just squaring everything up. You can do the same with a tape measure on a good flat surface and get it just as accurate. Obviously this doesn't touch on the camber, but neither do those hunter alignments. You need a real frame and suspension shop to correct camber. On a large truck camber is set by literally bending the axle.

 

I found these two videos that show basic alignment methods.

 

I was in the pit watching them set camber on my truck. I took a few steps back when I saw how far they were bending it

 

Md alignment.

 

When I had my FLD I was having tire issues. My friend recommended “the best alignment shop around”. So I went. And the first thing they wanted to do was bend my steer axle. So I left. I bobtailed all the way to KC to let Chad at Alignment Solutions look at it. He managed to fix all the issues without bending the axle and I’ve been going there ever since.

Being in a hurry cost me a set of steer tires with the truck I have now. I needed steers and we were busy. So I had the local shop so a 3 axle alignment when I got steers. They put everything “within spec” and 40k later I was in KC getting new steers and letting Chad fix my truck. I have 78k on my steers now with 14/32 left on them.

 

Chad is quite possibly the best in the business.