Can anybody tell me the factory caster, camber, and toe-in specs for a 2003 3500 2WD dually?

My preferred alignment would be factory caster with the left leading the right by 1/2* and no more than 1/8* camber. Toe at 1/32" or so.

I had the local Chevy store do it in August and we've really skinned the outside edge of the right front tire since. No point in talking to these folks. They'll want to do factory specs and my contention is factory specs are just a suggestion.

I was trained by Bear in the 70's and specialized in twin I-beam E150s. I've got the equipment and the racer is dead nuts but, this truck is beyond my capabilities.

Any front end guys in Florida can do this? Brian Bednar. Do you have a rack?

Years ago I was driving a F350 tow truck to make a living. It of course had twin I beam suspension and would wear the outside of the steer tires pretty quick. Book called for a little positive camber but when I had a car hooked up it had a lot of pos camber. I had a front end shop check my alignment with a car on the back and ended up getting it set negative when empty and positive when loaded. If you spend a lot of time towing set it up with the load on it.

I did the same thing with my old dualie. I found a truck shop that had a pit alignment machine. Had the trailer loaded, ready to go racing and they aligned it that way. I only drove it without the trailer 5-10% time.

quote:

Originally posted by fatpack:
Years ago I was driving a F350 tow truck to make a living. It of course had twin I beam suspension and would wear the outside of the steer tires pretty quick. Book called for a little positive camber but when I had a car hooked up it had a lot of pos camber. I had a front end shop check my alignment with a car on the back and ended up getting it set negative when empty and positive when loaded. If you spend a lot of time towing set it up with the load on it.

I hear you. Twin I-beams don't act like conventional independent front suspensions. The reason why is the pivot point is under the opposite end of the vehicle.

We had the local Telephone company account. They were real persnickety about how we maintained their vehicles. Camber wear was not an option.

Got the tires at my local guy. Stores going to let me work with the alignment guy when he gets off sick.

I can get you the factory specs next week at work if you still want them. The best way to align it for towing is to align it to factory specs with the trailer attached. This is hard to do with 99% of the alignment machine set ups now. The next best way would be to measure the ride height at the front, then jack the vehicle up (by the front of the frame) and set it to factory specs at that height. Park on a level surface with the trailer attached, and loaded like you're going to a race. Measure from the ground to the front fender wells at the center of the front tires. The height of the rear doesn't make much difference. Lowering the rear (with tongue weight) will add a little caster but it's the raising of the front that messes up camber, toe and wears out tires. Again, just jack the front up, under the frame until it's the same height as it is with the trailer attached. This (and 4 good heavy duty shocks) will help with tire wear, and make it driver better.

After I got the new tires I towed to a race on June 2nd. The truck didn't pull to one side or the other. I've driven it some with the same result. No pull, no problems

I'm starting to wonder if maybe I had a tire belt problem. No sure how quickly that can happen. I talked to my tire guy and I'm going to put a few more miles on it to see what happened.