Tutorial on how to align your Ranger at home after installing a leveling kit

[Gizmokid2005]

As an aside, my experience and advice with alignment shops. Take you vehicle to a shop that ONLY does alignments, not a shop that alignment is secondary to its primary business. And as demonstrated by Jacob, you do not need a $12,000 machine to align your vehicle.

Had a 1984 Audi Quattro 4-wheel alignment at the Audi dealer in Norfolk, VA. They said they needed 1/2 day to set up their machine (BS) and another 1/2 day to do the alignment (more BS). $125, expensive at the time. Drove cross country and destroyed the tires. I was a very unhappy camper. New tires and took it to the best alignment shop I could find in San Diego. They did a 4-wheel alignment in less than an hour, charged me $56 and I never had to have it aligned again in 140K miles.

My advice is, after you get a couple of thousand miles and your suspension has time to "settle," take it to a good shop and have it checked. Its worth your peace of mind and the knowledge your vehicle is correct - its worth the money in tires alone.

This is my take.

If you tinker a lot I can see not wanting to get a true shop to do it, but they're still so cheap at a real shop that it's worth it to spend the $50-100 to get a good alignment and not worry about it.

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[WorldPax]

Nice video. When you were bracketing in on your goal did you notice a pattern with the flats? On my Miata a flat ends up being about a 1/16th change in toe. So having set it for 1/16 toe in, I can go to events and adjust 3 flats to 1/8th toe out. For competition that's a good starting place and I can adjust from there in between runs if needed. Wondering about what a flat equals on the Ranger.

 

[gfitzge2]

I do have somewhat of a Pittsburgh accent even tho i haven't lived there in years. I apologize.

Don't apologize. Different accents are one of the things that make this country cool IMHO.

And since I live in a city with a name that gets pronounced so many different ways I would never throw shade to anyone's accent.

I was born in central OHIO (round on the ends and HI in the middle) but I have lived in "Loo a vul" most of my life.

Y'all have a good day. ?And yes Y'all can be singular or plural.

 

[painter1]

Jacob (Jt15601), great stuff, thanks for the video.

I lived in Pittsburgh in the 90s for 4 yrs, when I 1st ordered a sandwich at a restaurant and requested whole wheat bread I was told "Pittsburgh is a white bread town" . So I learned to eat white bread, pierogies but couldn't bring myself to drink Iron City beer.

I can't tell if you are joking here ??!

There's a town on the Canadian prairies (where there was a lot settlement by eastern Europeans) that boasts the "world's largest pyrogie". Travelling thru I wanted to see this wonder but couldn't locate it so we stopped a few times asking the locals. With me asking where the big "pie-ro-gie" was. All I got was chuckles. My wife, who thought this was all hilarious, later informed me it's pronounced "purrogie". Which makes sense with it's common alternate spelling here of perogie.

For some reason this little episode has become one of my wife's favourite dinner party stories (yes, it could be worse). Anyway, it's a little cheering to see it spelt pierogie in your post - I can again claim it's pronounced as pie.

 

[onobeka]

I've just discovered this thread and I want to say that the explanation given is amazing. I already knew it, but the way it was put in the video is exceptional. Good stuff!

The only culprit is the tool used to measure the angle, especially on the camber. It would take a very well calibrated clinometer to get the job done right or a vertical level indicator (in which case the camber would be zero). Doing it with a phone is very error prone, you would have to use the long side of the phone which typically has one button, which already induces an angle.

What do you guys use? A digital clinometer would be very good, yet a professional one is quite expensive and it would need regular calibration ...

 

[TORQUERULES]

Yep. I do a 4 wheel camber and toe alignment with a string setup on my Mustang every time I setup for the track and when I get back. It has saved me a few thousand dollars or more over the years.

Same here.

 

[TORQUERULES]

Hey guys, I made this video tutorial on how to align your ranger at home (camber and toe) after installing a leveling kit. I understand that some people aren't comfortable without spending a couple hundred bucks on an alignment job from a professional shop, but if you are comfortable enough to do the leveling kit yourself, you will have no issues pulling this off. It's definitely more advisable IMO to do it this way rather than have a 19 y/o kid do it at whatever budget chain tire shop is near you. (Stay away from Firestone).

Here's the video:

Didn't want to get in an argument in my other thread, bug honestly I was planning on doing just this. Have done it for years. Thanks for posting.

 

[TORQUERULES]

Hey guys, I made this video tutorial on how to align your ranger at home (camber and toe) after installing a leveling kit. I understand that some people aren't comfortable without spending a couple hundred bucks on an alignment job from a professional shop, but if you are comfortable enough to do the leveling kit yourself, you will have no issues pulling this off. It's definitely more advisable IMO to do it this way rather than have a 19 y/o kid do it at whatever budget chain tire shop is near you. (Stay away from Firestone).

Here's the video:

How much front lift did you go with?

 

[TORQUERULES]

Thanks for responding to me on YouTube I appreciate it.

 

[ben8jam]

I just had the alignment done at the shop after installing the Fox 2.0 all around. I watched the video just so I could hear what all the commotion over "camber" was.

 

[DHH]

Excellent video.
A couple things I noticed though, is you are relying on the hood of the truck to be level. It's not uncommon for the hood and even the entire body of a vehicle to be slightly off-level.
I'd go underneath and put a level on the frame rails. EDIT: Actually you should take the truck entirely out of the equation and put a level between the two points where the tires are going to sit.
Also, I would recommend not to jack the truck up and let the suspension extend. If you were to check your camber, jack the truck up and lower it, then check the camber again, it would be different. That's because when you lower it, the wheel is hitting the ground with the suspension extended and the friction between the tire and ground won't let the wheel go back to it's original position.

......and you're pronunciation didn't bother me at all.

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