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Old 11-15-2017, 09:05 AM   #25
cadillac_al
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Maine
Posts: 2,334
Re: Power steering - how to stiffen it up?

Those alignments specs look about perfect to me. These trucks rarely get camber and caster adjustments and spend their lives aligned where the factory did it when new. It's a big job to shim that stuff and I doubt any alignment shop is going to do that for the standard $50 charge. My camber is off 1/2 -1 degree and we looked up the shims it needed and they were still available but it didn't seem worth the effort to dis-assemble the front hubs and spindle to make it "perfect". My tire wear is always perfect too. I see so many newer trucks with tires worn on one side. I would not be happy with that.

I had no idea these trucks have 6 degrees of castor. I can't get that much castor in any of my cars. I put offset control arm shafts on my Caddy to try to get 4 degrees of castor and still only ended up with 2 degrees.

Rick must be used to newer trucks with car like handling and I am not. My old squares feel the same as they always did to me. I roll down the interstate at 75 easily and a lot of times I look down and it's going 80+ and I have to whoa her down some cause it's 40 years old. I have kicked the 4bbl in while going 80 and it shot right up to 100 pretty quick. I shut that down quickly too. On rough roads I do have to hang on because it does feel like the wheels come off the ground on rough dirt roads. Your head will hit the ceiling if you aren't buckled in. One of my buddies found that out too.

Another buddy has a newer ford, like 2012. He had to take out a $2500 loan to rebuild the whole front end. My 76 has 185k with the original ball joints and u-joints. I'll have a hard time getting used to the higher maintenance cost of a newer vehicle if I ever "upgrade". I'm stumped on the OP's nice looking truck. The alignment specs say it is fine. I would try a new steering stabilizer and see if that band aids it.

We haven't touched on the topic of a 4" lift and if it has the dropped steering arm or not. That is different from my trucks. My K20 has a 2" lift with stock steering arm and I noticed no change in handling I ran 33's and 35's on that truck and it seemed to track fine as to what I'm used to.
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76 Chevy K20
76 GMC K15
77 Chevy C10
77 Chevy K10

Last edited by cadillac_al; 11-15-2017 at 09:11 AM.
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