Basic Jeep Front End Alignment

Toe-In
Using the seam of your tires as a guide, measure the width between the front of your front tires and compare that to the back of your front tires.
Using a 13mm socket and wrench, loosen both ends of the tie-rod sleeves.
Grab the tie-rod with a pair of vice-grips or pipe wrench and rotate it a little bit at a time. Re-take measurements and repeat process until your toe-in is properly set.
Steering
Using a 15mm deep socket or wrench, loosen the bolts on your drag link turn-buckle.
Rotate your the drag link turnbuckle until your steering wheel is center again.

Basic Jeep Front End Alignment

After installing a lift on your Jeep, it is important to have your front end aligned before you drive anywhere. Failure to do so will result in severe tire wear and/or death wobble. Although not perfect, these are a few things you can do yourself to set your toe-in and re-center your steering wheel.

Click on the main pic above to see a larger image

What You Will Need

• Ratchet
• 13mm, 15mm (deep) Socket & Wrench's
• Tape measure
• Vice Grips or Pipe Wrench
• Floor Jack (optional)*
• Jack Stands (optional)*
• Wheel Chocks
• Someone to help you measure things

*NOTE: I like to do my toe-in end alignment with my front axle sitting on jack stands. This allows the wheels to move freely making it easer to adjust. This is not a necessary step and some people will argue that you actually need to set your toe-in with your wheels on the ground. For the record, I have not had any problems with my method only and bring this information to your attention so that you can decide which method you would like to use.

Setting Your Toe-In

You can't see it, but your front tires are in fact not parallel to each other.... or at least they shouldn't be when pointing straight ahead. This is called the "toe-in" and if it is set correctly, the fronts of your tires should actually be pointing inward just a hair. These simple steps will help you to adjust your toe-in and can all be done in minutes.

1. Park on level ground and then with the help of a friend, measure the width between the front of your front tires and then compare that to the back of your front tires. It is important to use the exact same measuring point front and back (such as the mold seam in the middle of your tires) in order to get an accurate reading.

2. Using a 13mm socket and wrench, loosen sleeves on both ends of the tie-rod.

3. Grab the tie-rod with a pair of vice-grips or pipe wrench and rotate it a little bit at a time taking measurements along the way. Continue this process until the width in the front is about 1/16" (but no more than 1/8") closer together than the back.

4. Once your toe-in has been set, re-tighten the tie-rod sleeves and then move on to re-centering your steering wheel.

Re-Centering Your Steering Wheel

1. With your tires pointing as straight as possible (leave your steering wheel rotated) and your tires on the ground, loosen the bolts on your drag link turnbuckle using a 15mm deep socket or wrench.

2. Grab the turnbuckle with your hand and rotate it a little bit at a time. Check your steering wheel periodically while doing this until it appears to be centered again.

3. Try to make sure that the bolts are pointing away from the track bar (rotate just the bolt sleeve and not the turnbuckle itself if necessary) and then tighten up the turnbuckle bolts.

4. Take your Jeep out for a test ride and determine if you need to make any other adjustments. It may take a few times to get it right but at least it is easy to do.

If you just installed a 2"-3" lift, that should be about all you need to do. However, if your lift is 4" or greater, you should seriously consider purchasing a set of adjustable control arms so that you can properly set your caster. I am currently running on my OEM control arms and for now, I seem to be doing just fine.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Special Thanks

I just wanted to personally thank Jerry Bransford for helping me to correct an error I had on this write-up. Jerry, you are a wealth of knowledge and a great guy!!