ernie1 wrote:
Grit Dog: I'm needing an alignment now because, even though I carefully marked the outline of the old struts before removing them, the new Bilstein struts have a different outline and so the van pulls to the right slightly. I had an alignment done at 20,000 miles and PleasureWay paid for it because it needed it and was a warranty issue. No I did not hit anything on the road.
Jim406: The Les Schwab store I went to said they had the proper equipment to handle my larger and wider vehicle but that the problem with trying to align it was that they don't have the alignment specs to do a complete job. They say that the specs are proprietary and Mercedes won't release it. They stated that they could do the basic toe and camber adjustment and that's it. I may go with that.
I don’t follow. Are you saying the mounts have an eccentric or a camber type bolt that allows a different effective mounting height or center to center distance?
There should not be enough camber difference between old and new to cause any apparent alignment issues. Especially due to just a slight amount of different ride height.
Does it even have adjustable camber in the ball joints?
If it pulls it pulls. Does it pull right on a flat or reverse cross slope road or only on a typical roadway with a typical 2% X slope to the right?
And regarding the alignment. You can basically only adjust toe, sometimes camber and sometimes caster. Caster, don’t touch it unless it’s showing signs of too little (floaty steering) or too much (difficulty returning to center). Camber, if the wheels are within 0.1, maybe 0.2 deg or being vertical don’t touch camber and it may not be adjustable anyway.
Toe is typically what causes a pull one direction or the other. But if it’s not wearing the tires funny and only pulls a little on a normal X slope to the right, it’s probably ok too.
