Handling question after spending thousands.

[johnymac]

Just got my truck on the road again from replacing:

Whole front end, dropped spindles, disk brakes, power booster, master cylinder, new coils front and rear, new upper lower control arm assemblies bushings, rear shock reloactors, new 1.25 front sway bar, adjustable track bar on the rear, rear control arm bushings, shocks, new 275 50 15 tires all around.

I now have about a 2.5/6 drop on the truck, which has leveled the stance out nicely.

Had the front end alignment a few days back, told me the front end was tight and the rear end is dead on from the track bar. Truck should handle nicely now.

The truck doesn't roll on corners. no nose dives when brake quickly great os straight smooth roads.

First problem, The steering is so easy got the orginal large steering wheel. I don't seem to feel the road like I would like to. Like to slow the steering a bit , try to get a better feel of the road. I realize I am not explaining this very well.

Secondly, on poor road conditions, bumps, uneven road surface, the truck seems to want to wander, have to kind of fight to get back in control.

Would a steering stabilizer help here. Someone told me they are just for 4 wheel drive trucks?

I realize this is a 67 and a truck, so not going to handle like my vet, but did expect it to be a little more fun to drive, got to admit a bit bummed right now.

Does this sound common? Anything I can do to improve?

Sure appreciate any suggestions and thank you!!

[CoryM]

I didnt have a problem with my truck wandering with 275/60/15.
A steering stabizer helps when you add wider tires though. If you want more feel through the steering wheel you are gonna have to toss the P/S. The corvettes have variable ratio steering boxes, means that when your stopped and trun the wheel its at full power, but at 100mph its very weak so that you can feel the road. Another thing is that maybe the truck has been set back to origional specs by the alignment shop? THere may be a better setting than that with the mods youve made. Good Luck man, i Hope you get it figured out.
CoryM

[slam33]

A stabilizer will work well. get a single.

[racedvl]

Doesn't Summit sell some sort of valve to reduice the p/s pressure?

[REPO1]

As for the wandering, I bet you really notice it alot on an uneven road surface, or maybe on a stretch of highway where the large Semi-trucks have actually indented the highway?

I know what you mean. My '97 Z28 does this also. The reason being the wide tires on the front. The wider the tire, the more it will catch all the imperfections in the road. Its just something you have to get used to. At first I was wondering the same thing, but not it doesn't bother me much any more. I have 275/40-17s all the way around on the car.

[johnymac]

Thanks you so much for the advice/info!
I really appreciate it.

Your not going to believe what I found last night. After driving the truck about 300 miles through out the weekend. I happen to see one of my lugs was about to fall off. Out of the 12 lugs on both front tires only about 3 on each side were tight. I torqued all of them this am. It took the guy 3.5 hours to get the alignment done Friday. He must of rushed at the end. I even tipped him 6 bucks.
I am also missing most the screws that old the center caps on the wheels. I hate bring my vehicles anywhere to have people touch them, I guess I should of checked this out, but was so excited to drive the dam thing!

I am thinking the handling should improve drastically now.
Unreal huh?

[68 with 350 TPI]

Well the few things I would suggest is...

1) Take it back to the shop and have the alignment shop and have it rechecked on their time/money!
If the wheels were not tight enough it can cause a it to be off.
And I would take the time to set the air pressure in the tires at what ever you want it at before you take it back. (That also makes a diffrence).

2) early classics makes a track bar for our trucks that have been lowered.
When you lower these trucks more than 4 inches the rear end gets pushed to the right a bit and it throws the alignment off.
I would get one of those asap.

You may also want to get a rear swaybar.

Hope this helps.

[johnymac]

Thanks for the info!

I am thinking that they took the center cap off to do the alignment.
I checked the air pressure both tires were at 32 pounds.

The wheel feels great on straight roads and on the highway.
No tire wear after about 300 miles either.

I may take back. Not sure yet.

[68 Suburban]

Dont ditch your power steering!!! They make a valve so you can control the amount of preasure your power steering is getting!

[Low69CST]

If you want a better feel in the truck, and don't care about tire wear, pump up the tires. When I was about 17 or 18 (my wild road racing days) I put a set 255/50ZR16's all the way around my 95 S-10 SS. They made it handle good. Then I got thinking about what stock cars do. They inflate their tires to about 42-50psi. I tried my tires at this pressure and you would not believe the difference. While 32-35 gives a good foot print for driving down the interstate, when cut a corner the load on the tire jumps about 70%. So increase the pressure to keep the foot print on the ground.

This probably isn't the solution to your problem but I like explaining it. The loose lugs probably caused alot of what you were feeling.

What brand spindles did you have? The wandering over bumpy conditions sounds like a bump steer problem. If you just have the original replacement adjustable pan hard rod, then they may cause your truck to wander to. If you have the one that connects from the frame to the trailing arm, then I don't know what to tell you. Keep us updated.

[c-10 racer]

you may want to find out what caster/ camber angles the mechanic set the truck up at.. if he set it up for a manual steering truck, or if he just didn't really care about it... you may have some wander just due to not enough caster... i usually set my trucks at 3 to 3.5 degrees of caster and leave the right side a bit higher to compensate for the steep crown of the road down here. I set my camber low, like 1/2 to 1/4 of a degree positive and toe the total toe to around 1/8th positive.... that seems to work well. if the truck is really dropped you may have problems getting that ammount of adjustment out of it, in that case, i'd sacrifice the camber forst (so the tires wear a little faster, better than not being able to drive the truck) anywhoo... maybe post the specs he set it at so we can see what's going on....