Alignment - Need Advice

[Clark Kent]

Take it to an Indy shop that does trucks and have them confirm the wheelbase is the same left to right.

I’m having issues, and a couple more trucks I know of are also. I bet your passenger side wheelbase is about 1/2” out. (Long)

There’s a really odd procedure I posed a while back that Ineos uses and it did work, and I don’t know why… but… I think it’s a “patch” that’s not going to be replicated by an Indy shop. It’s a bit of work. Mine is back in due to having a locker issue. They chose to replace the front assembly, and voila, I got it back with the same left push as before. A standard alignment shows all green, but it’s out.

what is the date on your build? I’m going to try to compile that. If it’s a frame issue, that can like be isolated to a build date. If it’s control arms and they aren’t keeping track of the production batches… not.

That wheelbase alignment procedure is now in the workshop manual. It’s here if you have portal access, or a text copy is attached.

 

[Zimm]

Yep, that read similar.

They need expendables to get a truck aligned and somehow it’ll be showing aligned, and still pull.

 

[Glen]

That wheelbase alignment procedure is now in the workshop manual. It’s here if you have portal access, or a text copy is attached.

I've followed a similar procedure for settling in rubber / hydraulic engine mounts on FWD vehicles. I had some crazy engine vibration after installing new engine / transmission mounts on my '90 VW. Running the fasteners mildly tight and driving the vehicle a short distance allowed everything to settle into a neutral position so the mounts could move freely in all directions and work as intended. Then I tightened everything to its final torque spec. It looks like that's what Ineos is doing here - trying to ensure all the rubber bushings on the control arms are in a neutral position before final tightening of the bolts that secure the bonded internal steel bushing.

For the front and rear control arms, they’ve repeated the 110 Nm then 180° more procedure here, explicitly noting the fasteners need to be replaced. The caster bolt sets are $50 each, so * 12 bolts sets is roughly $600 to do an alignment . . . that’s nuts.

By saying to discard the fasteners, Ineos is acknowledging that either their procedure is torque to yield or that it might get into that region. Torque to yield is for situations where you need extremely precise torque values, like compressing a gasket and holding down a head. It actually provides less clamping force than the proof load of a fastener since clamping force drops (and levels off for a bit - that's the "precise" part) once you exceed the elastic limits of the fastener. I’m struggling to understand why control arms would need either extremely precise clamping forces from torque to yield OR extremely high clamping forces at all. The fastener are in a double shear loading - that’s about as strong as it gets. Extreme clamping forces shouldn’t be required.

I'd suspect there's something else going on here - like Ineos trying to solve a problem they don't quite understand yet.

 

[Dokatd]

I've followed a similar procedure for settling in rubber / hydraulic engine mounts on FWD vehicles. I had some crazy engine vibration after installing new engine / transmission mounts on my '90 VW. Running the fasteners mildly tight and driving the vehicle a short distance allowed everything to settle into a neutral position so the mounts could move freely in all directions and work as intended. Then I tightened everything to its final torque spec. It looks like that's what Ineos is doing here - trying to ensure all the rubber bushings on the control arms are in a neutral position before final tightening of the bolts that secure the bonded internal steel bushing.

For the front and rear control arms, they’ve repeated the 110 Nm then 180° more procedure here, explicitly noting the fasteners need to be replaced. The caster bolt sets are $50 each, so * 12 bolts sets is roughly $600 to do an alignment . . . that’s nuts.

By saying to discard the fasteners, Ineos is acknowledging that either their procedure is torque to yield or that it might get into that region. Torque to yield is for situations where you need extremely precise torque values, like compressing a gasket and holding down a head. It actually provides less clamping force than the proof load of a fastener since clamping force drops (and levels off for a bit - that's the "precise" part) once you exceed the elastic limits of the fastener. I’m struggling to understand why control arms would need either extremely precise clamping forces from torque to yield OR extremely high clamping forces at all. The fastener are in a double shear loading - that’s about as strong as it gets. Extreme clamping forces shouldn’t be required.

I'd suspect there's something else going on here - like Ineos trying to solve a problem they don't quite understand yet.

Biggest issue I see with this is that the procedures effects will diminish over time. And likely pretty quickly too. This procedure relies on rubber bushings being preloaded to modify thrust angle. Preloaded bushings will also fail faster than non loaded.

This all indicates to me that Ineos thought their tolerances in the factory would be higher than they actually are.

This also makes the Metal Cloak or similar arms of more value. With the Metal Cloak you can adjust all arms and properly set thrust angle without any bushing pre load.