front end alignment

KD4UPL wrote:
When I put my work truck body on my new '05 dually I noticed the front tires wearing funny. I took it for an alignement. The shop said, as I suspected, that the additonal 2 thousand pounds or so of bed and tools changed things. After it was aligned with the additional weight the tires wear even now.
I can't remember but I don't think I ever had to have it aligned again. It's always got the tools or the camper on the back it seems. I never drive it empty anymore.

Was it a Chevy? Or 2wd truck?

Super_Dave wrote:
When folks here post their axle weights it seems like the front axle weight changes very little and the rear axles bears the brunt of the camper load.

At bare minimum, there's going to be a significant caster change from putting a camper on the back of the truck. I suspect that it would be more positive caster though (if the picture in my head is right), which is going to be a good thing unless it's excessive.

When I put my work truck body on my new '05 dually I noticed the front tires wearing funny. I took it for an alignement. The shop said, as I suspected, that the additonal 2 thousand pounds or so of bed and tools changed things. After it was aligned with the additional weight the tires wear even now.
I can't remember but I don't think I ever had to have it aligned again. It's always got the tools or the camper on the back it seems. I never drive it empty anymore.

Ultimately, I doubt it makes a hair's difference one way or the other.

Depends. If you have a Chevy with IFS, and a short bed/BAC (big asss camper), you probably are losing a couple hundred lbs off the front axle. That could make a difference. If you mostly have the camper on, I'd bring it in with the camper on.

On a solid axle front end, your camber and caster will not change.

back in the old days when I was a mechanic, we used to have contractors come in with there trucks for an alignment. But they were empty because they needed the tools while truck was in shop. We used to get about 5 guys to sit in the back of the bed to imitate load when setting the toe

When folks here post their axle weights it seems like the front axle weight changes very little and the rear axles bears the brunt of the camper load.

My local Firestone dealer wants me to bring in my fifth wheel so he can do a front end alignment on my truck with the trailers weight. Said he can can a more accurate alignment since I mainly use the truck to tow the fifth wheel. I've never seen this done before but his garage is big enough to fit both of them.

ticki2 wrote:
Should you have an alignment with or without the TC loaded , or does it matter ?

Doesn't matter,imho,
Otherwise you'd have to get alignment every time you carry or remove weight from the truck,,