Toe in or toe out?

[RubyRecon]

The factory alignment calls for Toe out in front. I have always ran a little toe in. With my new 39” K02‘s I struggle to get a good read on toe at home so I went to an alignment shop. It turns out what I thought was a little toe in was a little toe out. 0.08 degrees. When they adjusted it to O.2 out it made the Jeep wonder on the freeway…..

I also have -1.0 and -0.9 Camber in front. Any thoughts? Bend axle, ball joint, uprights? Normal?

thank you

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[Roky]

The factory alignment calls for Toe out in front. I have always ran a little toe in. With my new 39” K02‘s I struggle to get a good read on toe at home so I went to an alignment shop. It turns out what I thought was a little toe in was a little toe out. 0.08 degrees. When they adjusted it to O.2 out it made the Jeep wonder on the freeway…..

I also have -1.0 and -0.9 Camber in front. Any thoughts? Bend axle, ball joint, uprights? Normal?

thank you

I’ve found over the years that I prefer 1/16th inch Toed-in for straight line stability and good even tire wear….Toe-in or Toe-out is somewhat subjective…. Some like Toe-out which helps with understeer and oversteer, but for me personally, mine is a lifted jeep on 37s, I’m not turning aggressively enough for that to payoff….whichever way you choose, I would recommend not exceeding 1/8”, and actually should keep it around 1/16”. As for your camber, -0.5 to 1.0 is considered in spec, so your camber is fine IMO…. That said, if you’re still on factory ball joints regardless of mileage (doesn’t matter) I would keep an eye on it, especially moving to 39s….

 

[WontonJLUR]

Echoing the above, ball joints need to move to close to the top of your list on 39s. Mine were toast at 20k miles after 37s then 39s.

Toe out will destroy the inner edge of your tires. Most road going vehicles use toe in because as you pick up speed, and the slack is taken out of your steering/suspension components, the tires will end up more or less at zero toe.

I might suggest looking into purchasing or making an alignment tool, such as:
https://www.tmrcustoms.com/products/diy-toe-alignment-tool

Very handy to be able to check your toe at home, especially if you wheel.

 

[roaniecowpony]

There are no common passenger vehicles that I'm aware of that have toe-out as the OEM recommended alignment. Toe-out will make it wander. Your experience with the alignment you had done tells me that something is loose in your steering system. You cannot accurately set alignment if a steering component is loose/worn. It's likely balljoints, since they are the weak sauce in the JL. But it could be, tierod ends, draglink ends, steering box, or the trackbar (bushings) or some combination of them. I've had a Steersmarts Yeti Pro trackbar in my JLUR for 5 years and it was moving around a bit on the highway and had a little shimmy here and there on some bumps. I changed the old poly bushings for new last week, and all was fixed. The OEM steering, trackbar, and balljoints on the JL are weak. I replaced all of those with high quality aftermarket and upgraded to the iron steering box. It drives like it should, with 37" tires. I can cruise comfortably with one hand at 80 mph.

The Tech Authority Service Manual (OEM) that I have shows the toe alignment spec as 0.20 degrees of toe-in.

Camber can be adjusted with bushings. In the upper balljoint hole in the knuckle, there's a bushing. These are calibrated in 1/4 degree increments for correcting manufacturing variation. SPC Jeep JL / JT Camber Sleeves (polyperformance.com)

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