I just replaced my passenger side knuckle and ball joints. Finally got a chance to take it for a drive today, and something is not right. After driving, the bottoms of both front wheels are out farther than the top. The truck will just veer right or left without warning. I noticed that the driver side of the sway bar was sticking out of the rubber bushing farther than the passenger side. It also moves in and out of the bushings when I jack up or lower the truck. Could this possibly be the problem? Thanks for any help.

Matt Poker

 

Did you take it to an alignment shop afterward?

 

I did not have it aligned, and this really does not seem like an alignment problem. If I jack it up and let it down again, the wheels are normal. When I drive, they tilt and I pretty much have no control.

 

When I jack up the front of my truck and let it down the tops of the wheels are out further than the bottoms until I drive it down the road and then they settle back to normal. To me, having seen that with my truck, it makes sense that if you let it off a jack and it sits normal that after you start driving it the bottoms would settle out. It's just how the suspension settles after having no weight on it. Your's starts normal and settles in because the camber is off. Whenever you do any kind of suspension/steering work you always want to get an alignment.

 

If it takes off without warning to the right or left, your alignment is out of whack. The variations in the road surface and your suspension working causes one tire to grab more than the other and off you go.
I've had it happen to me when the bolts for one of my upper control arms came loose while driving to work on a two lane road with ditches on both sides. Almost crapped my pants a few times when I would hit bumps and the truck would shoot toward the ditch. Luckily, I was able to stay on the road. Needless to say, the shop that did my alignment the weekend before never got anymore business from me.
Anyways, if you don't know, your caster and camber are adjusted by moving the upper control arm in/out. So you need to get your tires as straight up and down as you can (with the weight of the truck on them), and then tighten the two bolts in the pivot bars that attach your upper control arms to the truck to 155 ft lbs. That should be good enough to get to a shop for an alignment.

Good Luck,

Gerry