On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 04:36:41 +0000 (UTC), Frank Baron
wrote:

On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 23:19:45 -0500, advised:

Before you start asking too many questions, stop and think it out
like you finally did with your tire changing.

The tire changing is now very easy.

I did a 60-series passenger-car tire today for a friend who had a flat and
it was so easy I looked like I knew what I was doing. The difference is
that a normal 60 series passenger tire is a piece of cake compared to these
75-series 108T sidewalls on the SUV.

Nonetheless, I have the 75-series SUV tires all figured out now for how to
break the beak so we're pretty much done with this thread for breaking
beads.

Next is figuring out the wheel weights to use (I think I am supposed to use
PZ, PZU, PST, or PSTU styles but I'm double-checking that as I speak.

Alignment comes after that.
http://i.cubeupload.com/WyBNYm.jpg

When you check your
alignment - if what you can check is OK, good. But if what you can
check is NOT OK, I would still STRONGLY recommend you take it to a
GOOD front end shop, or the dealer, to have it checked to be sure
nothing is bent and the caster isn't off.

The problem with the Internet is that everything has to be said, even the
stuff that everyone already knows. Especially when it comes to alignment,
when 99,999 out of 100,000 people are *scared* to do it themselves.

Even if they weren't scared, 95,000 out of 100,000 can't *think* that hard,
because angles and geometries are involved, where some measurements have to
be converted from, say, degrees to inches (or vice versa).

So what we end up in *any* alignment thread, is 95% of the people spouting
utterly useless warnings that everyone already knows and only 5% of the
people helping out on the questions.

You may be in that 5% but you don't need to tell me the stuff that everyone
knows. I only need to know *how* to do it.

No, respectfully - you need to know WHAT you are doing and WHY before
the HOW makes any sense.

For the Toyota, the only things that can be adjusted are front caster,
camber, and toe, where caster & camber are adjusted together and toe is
adjusted separately and last.

You still have not said what Toyota SUV- 4runner, Higlander, FJ
Cruiser, older land cruiser, Rav4, Sequoia, or Venza???
Nothing else is adjustable and there is absolutely no indication anywhere
that anything is out of alignment, so it's more of a doublecheck than
anything else.

Caster can be calculated from camber and camber can be measured directly,
as can toe, so, that's the very simple plan of attack.

The formula is: Caster (deg) = (180 / 3.1415) * [(camber1 - camber2) /
(turnangle1 - turnangle2)]

Basically simplified to 57.3X(camber change/degrees of turn)

Turn the wheel in45 degrees. Measure camber. Turn out 45 degrees,
read camber.. Subtract camber 1 from camber 2 - say the difference is
5 degrees.. 5 devided by 90 = .055, times57.3= 3.18 degrees of caster.

Without slip plates side loading can affect the camber measurements
somewhat which also affects the caster calculation.

So yes, theoretically you CAN measure/calculate caster - but again
accuracy is going to be crucial. Good enough to see if you are close -
not accurate or repeatable enough, in most cases, to make an accurate
fine adjustment. However, the Toyota truck-based SUV front ends are
stout enough that unless you have really bashed it about or fooled
withit, nothing is going to change unless something wears out -----
The turn-angle is critical to the calculation


The actual charts for Toyota SUVs are complex but I'm working on them.
http://i.cubeupload.com/WyBNYm.jpg