BDS 7" alignment Question

I've been lurking for quite some time but this is my first post here. I have a 2012 SR5 DC 4x4 with a BDS 7" coilover lift, running on BFG KO2 35's. It's been on for 2+ years and I've been thrilled with it. I've put about 15k miles on it since the upgrade and rotated the tires after the first 5k miles.

Recently I have noticed excessive tire wear on the front end. Upon closer inspection the wear is considerably higher on the inside edge of both front tires, (but even the outer portion is noticeably more worn than the rears) which I assume indicates negative camber.

The truck was aligned after the lift install (professional install) and I was told it was in spec, however I did not get a printout from the alignment.

Should I have done another alignment a few months after the install to compensate for the lift settling in?

The truck handles great on and off road but last winter I did notice some odd steering on a roadtrip. Long highway drive with patchy snow and dry pavement. It felt almost like torque steer on a front wheel drive when we transitioned between the snowy patches to the dry pavement and back while in and out of 4 wheel drive. This made sense at slower speeds on slick roads but didn't feel right on the highway. It gave me enough pause to slow way down.

There is also a LOT of tire squealing in sharp turns, like parking lot navigation, even when going extremely slow and if I hit a decent size bump on dry pavement, like some railroad tracks or hump in the road at speed I get a little chirp from the front tires, this has been going on from day one. I always chalked this up to the bigger tires but maybe that is not the case?

I am going in for an alignment next week and hoping the issue can be corrected. I understand alignment can be challenging after a lift. I can live with the tire squealing and occasional chirping, but the tire wear is an issue, even with these less expensive tires is getting me down.

If they cannot get the alignment in spec due to the lift, does anyone have any suggestions as to what direction to go?



The uneven wear doesn't show in the picture that well but you can see it, I think this is about 10k miles since first tire rotation.

 

Welcome from Texas, Nice rig! What are your UCA'S?

 

Thanks, Stock UCA's

 

Maybe those joints going out???

 

Hadn't thought of that, is that something that can easily be checked or is it a replace and see what happens type of thing? I have 65k miles for info.

 

If u have bad shocks they can cost your tires wear too.
Take to another shop to do alignment and rotation balance tires again
I did my tires rotation and balance every 3k-5k but bigs tires balance of tires very important to me. some time don’t have to wait until 3k-5k whenever I feel need to balance

 

See if you can 'Road Force' balance as well

 

Thers also SPC UCAs that are adjustable

 

This is my uncle 16 with new BDS UCA looks good and ride good too.
And this is my ICON

 

I just looked at my cam bolts (?) to see how much adjustment is left for camber. The fronts are a few degrees off zero but the rear ones are nearly maxed out towards positive, maybe 10 degrees left for adjustment. Hoping this is enough to work with...

 

do you think your average alignment shop would know how or be able to use the adjustability on a fully adjustable UCA? Issue is I live in a little town with few options and the shop that did the lift is a day away.

ARamirez73, do you work for the railroad?

 

Yes I do

 

Very cool. I'm an Engineer for BNSF in Wyoming. Love it, hate it every day.

 

Union Pacific here, 13 yrs in, MofW Dept, 8 on 7 off, love it n hate it

 

You can call n ask before ya head out ther to em, they shud know about em

 

12 years in for me, on call 24-7.......

Thanks for all the info, very much appreciated.

 

We've designed a few items specifically for this lift. Tire wear, tire scrubbing and bump steer have all been a common issue with this lift and will gladly help. When its convenient please feel free to give me a call 801-635-4872

 

Thanks this advise. David has helped me several times and I can attest to the quality of his products. Using them on my pro comp lift @Coachbuilder1 knows his stuff and is a great resource.

 

David, thank you for the info, Will be giving you a call when I get back from my Maze district trip later this month.

I got in to get an alignment this morning. Printout showed excessive toe in which was corrected as well as a little negative camber which was corrected. I had it in my head that toe in would cause excessive tread wear on the outside of the tires but maybe I'm off on that assumption. Below is the alignment sheet if anyone has any thoughts on it they would be greatly appreciated.

 

Sounds great Thanks for posting your printout, This lift requires pretty tight tolerance compared to others and would use the following alignment specs.

Camber .20 degrees per side.
Caster 2.2-2.5 degrees per side,
Toe .07-.10 degrees per side not to exceed .20 combine.

Sad thing is everything is in green which makes most alignment techs happy but your poor tires will take a beating.

Please feel free to call anytime its convenient and will go over your build in greater detail. 801-635-4872

 

This is will be my next mod

 

is that icon components on a BDS LIFT?

 

can anyone tell me if these numbers are good ?