1992 Chevrolet S-10 Steering

REZA3AUTO

MEMBER
1992 CHEVROLET S-10
250,000 MILES

Situation :
Truck is 2wd and there are no shims at the left pivot shaft to frame bolts I mean there is an empty space on the bolt between the shaft and frame and when I steer it makes a bad hitting sound and the previous owner has added an extra nut to each bolts and recently one of the nuts loosened and droped out of the bolt.
At the right there are shims present, but the top of the wheel is outboard.
As the result I have tire wear at both sides.

My questions :
1 - Is adding shims to the left pivot shaft enough to solve the problem of making sound and adjusting the angles or it requires sth else to do because some say to do an exfoliation.

2 - How many shims are needed to adjust camber and caster angles?
Thanks

2 Replies

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
33,729 POSTS

I have no clue what "do an exfoliation" means. You need an alignment. The shims fell out. That's what's allowing the shaft to move around. There should be no reason to be adding additional nuts. If the two on each side don't stay tight by themselves it is usually because there is dirt and rust in the threads and the nut feels tight but it's not yet clamping the shaft in place.

There's no way to know how many shims to put in the four places without having the truck on an alignment computer. If you can see the right wheel tipped out too far on top, that will only affect that one tire. The left wheel can have its own problem, as yours does, but that won't affect the right tire. On many vehicles changing camber causes a change in "toe", and that WILL affect both front tires equally. Toe is the direction the tires are steering. If you look at the geometry of the steering and suspension systems on your truck, you'll see the steering arm / outer tie rod end is nearly the same distance off the ground as the lower ball joint. That means that when camber is adjusted or in this case is allowed to change, toe will not change very much as a result.