Wheel Alignment - Thrust Angle Question

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Wheel Alignment - Thrust Angle Question

Do any of the following angles:

Caster

Rear Camber

SAI/kingpin

Affect thrust angle?

2

Forget what I said.

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3

No, Thrust angle is determined by the front and rear toe. If they are set properly, thrust angle will be zero.

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4

Mustang:

I have a strange reason for asking:

Even though I made sure the aligner made the rear toe equal on both sides, and the front toe as equal as possible, the Thrust angle on the printout was either positive or negative 0.02°

That slight T/A is what I attributed to differences, side to side, of the directional angles (Camber, Caster, SAI).

5

Those being the key data regarding a 0.02 degree thrust angle. That is a tiny number. An inconsequential number.

If you took the car to have it re checked, it likely would not read 0.02 degrees.

6

Can you post a picture of the alignment sheet?

7

Also… the build tolerances of the car can affect TA as can accident damage or even service. If you loosen the front subframe and give it a thump with a big hammer you can change TA.

If you want to go all OCD on it, measure wheelbase side to side… likely they are not equal. Now measure the diagonals… LF fo RR centerline and opposite. They likely are not equal either.

The front and rear subframes and the control arm mounting holes all have clearance that will allow small movements to make your car close to perfectly square. Or they may need elongating to make perfect.

Car development engineers and racers do things like these.

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8

If I saw a thrust angle reading that low I would ascribe it to variance in the measuring device rather than an issue with the car. It’s well within tolerances.

I wouldn’t really give a second look to anything under 0.1 unless there was a very specific issue I was addressing.