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Has anyone had a rear wheel alignment done on their oka?

Mine is out by a little. I have removed the rear springs and found there is no room for movement between the spring centre bolt head and the axle. There is also no room to move at the spring eyelet and chassis mount. It appears to make any changes one would have to grind a bigger hole in the top plate of the axle to allow for adjustments after loosening the axle U bolts. OR can the spring lengths be changed.

Any comments or experiences would be appreciated.

Yes. Done at my local truck wheel aligner. they put plates in and align the rear then weld in place

How do the rear wheels get out of alignment in the first place ?

I would have thought with the correct springs, centre bolts and an unbent chassis and axle housing all would be in line.

Are you sure you haven't got mis matched spring packs or a broken centre bolt ?

Deano 

Thankyou for the comments. I think I will try David's suggestion. Dean the springs have been sent off as they were very sad. The spring guys were going to measure the springs to see if they were of equal length. The centre bolts were intact. I had a lot of fun trying to separate the spring from the axle. It was so tight. Nothing appears to be bent. Maybe it was slightly off from new as most people only check the front wheel alignment and not the rear.

Was your alignment so bad that the vehicle was noticeably crabbing down the road??

Other than that, what ill effects would it produce apart from putting the steering slightly off-centre to compensate.

Having had leaf sprung troopcarriers for most of my adult life i wouldn't be too worried about rear alignment, most of them crabbed a little bit and it never worried anything or affected tyres. In fact all the 40 series crabbed from brand new, typically anything up to 30mm difference between front and rear, the 70 series were better but never perfect.  Wouldn't imagine Oka chassis would be any different although 374 does track pretty true from visual observation.

Easy to check when you next drive on a dirt surface note how far right or left the rear tyre tracks are either side of the front when travelling in a straight line.

From a drivers point of view I hadn't noticed. My brother thought it was out before I had it wheel aligned. It wears the inside edge of the front tyres even though camber castor and toe are all ok.

Re set springs. I had some truck springs re set & the top leaf was layed backwadw to rest of pack. did it crab before you had the springs done?

Picked up springs today. Centre pins were straight as a die. Will have fun putting it back together. Probably find out next week if there is any difference.

I doubt whether the front tyres wearing on the inside has anything to do with the rear alignment, more a function of rigid axles and leaf spring suspension, usually avoided by rotating tyres front to rear frequently. 374 does it a bit in 10k but if i swap them front to rear at 5k it seems to stop it.

Peter Davis & Serena Fraser at July 24, 2012 at 6:43 PM

From a drivers point of view I hadn't noticed. My brother thought it was out before I had it wheel aligned. It wears the inside edge of the front tyres even though camber castor and toe are all ok.

Peter,I will sugest to check the wheel alignment equipment,if every thing checks out it should be no wearing to the inside of the front tyres,if the OKA is crabing due to misaligned rear, only one tyre will wear on the inside acording to de side being out of alignment,it's not unusual for equipment to be out or have different tyre pressures at the time of alignment,the sagging of the springs will slightly throw the total alignment out but really it's nothing to write home about.

Cheers,Joe

If your rear springs are found to be the same when re-set and the centre bolts are a tight fit in the axle assembly then the only thing that is going to put the rear 'alignment' out is if the spring mounts were were jigged incorrectly when the chassis was made. Unlikely I would have thought.

More likely to be an issue at the front if there is an issue. Measure wheel centre to wheel centre each side when the rear is back together and you'll soon know.

Inside tyre wear can be caused by a few things. Worn front end components upsetting the alignment being the most usual cause. Incorrect toe in adjustment is the next obvious choice. Incorrect castor angle if wedges have been used between the diff housing and springs, though this will affect tracking not tyre wear I would have thought.

Another possibility, and this was the case with #413 was that the front RHS housing was bent slightly out of alignment (up) which affected the camber on that side. Its pretty easy to pick. Park on a flat surface and look at the front wheels, if the tops are laying in a bit then this is your problem. Paul Nott has tapered castor correction shims to fix this. Not an uncommon problem according to Paul and as I said easily fixed.

By laying in a bit more pressure is put on the inside of the wheel causing it to wear the inside of the tyre more than the outside. Unless both sides are bent then this wear will be evident on one side only wheras with toe in issues uneven wear will be on both sides.

Deano

Measure the diagonals, brake rotor to rotor should be the same. Corner to corner square. Brett