Hi guys looking for an alignment shop in Jacksonville FL, that can do something older than 93 and is good at road race setups on older cars, asking if they can do an alignment for a volare or aspen they just kind a look at you like you're crazy also need to be able to do it to my specs not what factory calls for. Anyone with good or bad experiences please chime in, car will need to be towed since front end was rebuilt, and I don't feel like roasting my brand-new tires upfront, And/or wh has set up their own road race alignments at home ?

Thanks,
-Mike

Ask this question in the handling forum. They got some interesting setups there.

Actually with your weight in barbells on the dr seat and steering whell halfway between lock to lock you can (1) set the ride height (tbars) to where the front tires look good (to you) in the wheelwells (2) turn all (4) cams till you get max caster (3) bring rear cam on each side out till a 2 ft carpenters level vertical on the sidewall(s) shows plumb (zero camber) then (4) adj sleeves till toe in is straight ahead (tires pointed straight ahead by measureing distance between sidewalls at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock & want those distances to be equal). This is plenty accurate & will save you a towing charge. EDIT forgot if you do camber or toe in first but yes go to the handling site. I'd drive it for 10 miles or so to let the tbars etc settle & I'll call the shop & ask if they do not compensate for drivers weight & if they do if they can undo that calibration & just go by the settings then have him pull the weights from the pass seat back over to the dr seat before he exits after he drives up on the rack. A bit picky but my 65 dart just floated down the road after they did it the way I wanted it: zero camber/max positive caster & first they left the ride height where I put it but they did even it up a skosh as it changed a hair in the 10 mile trip. half tank of gas/tires aired up where I wanted em

Alignment is an alignment. Just different numbers for different needs/applications.

I haven't done one to my Barracuda yet. But I did one with the owners help on this Hemi Dart. Over 2 degrees of positive caster with manual steering and skinny tires. Car has Hurst installed-like K-frame spacers.

This is a Longacre digital caster/camber gauge with rim attachment. We did toe with a good tape measure.

Drives really nice.

I could give you a couple of shops in Central IL but not Florida.

Getting the toe close so you can drive to the shop is pretty straight forward. Two ways I know and both start with a carpenters rule. 1) pick a consistent feature in the tire tread. Measure across front and rear of the front tires. Adjust the tie rod sleeve(s) so you have around 3/16" toe in. (closer in the front) 2) Use string stretched along the tire sidewalls and just touching the front of each sidewall to jackstands about 10' in front of the car. Measure off and mark tire diameter along the strings and measure string to string to get the toe measurement. Adjust as needed.

I think the string approach is a bit more accurate but a bit of a PITA.

Hey Mike, if you can't find a shop near you this deal works great for me at home.

BTW my Wife and her girlfriend from Texas, dog and U haul trailer in tow is hopefully gonna show up in Jacksonville on Fri this week. She(my wife) just landed in DFW at 7:15 est in Texas. She is driving the tow vehicle because her girl friend can't/won't. Been there my self a few times too in Jacksonville. Her girlfriend is moving there for good from Texas...sorry. LOL

This is the "Fastrax" I think it's called. I have used it on 4 vehicles now.

It cost 200 bucks, the tool.
I made swivel plates out of 14ga steel. Just plain flat plates with grease in between them so they swivel nice.
I leveled them side to side.



My 74 has been driven at least 10000 miles since my alinement, tire wear is exactly what I'd expect from my settings.

Cool thing is I can set it and go drive it and come back the readings repeat. Gave me confidence it wasn't changing and I can feel the difference between adjustments. Worthwhile tool. Pretty much only cost me 200 bucks, the scrap 14ga was free, the rest are hand tools.

My alinement rack, lol. Easy to roll the car on and off when making adjustments and the miles have proven that it is plenty accurate enough. To me it's really a reference, I reference to it and really don't pay attention all that much to what is says. Just as long as it repeats every time I put on the car, same reading, then I know where to go from there if you know what I mean? Sure beats getting jerked around at the local shop and you don't have to let some smuck drive your car.



Did these guys. I even use it on a RV, it has 22.5" wheels on it. I hold the gauge to the wheel and got my readings, helps me keep track of my king pin wear and front end alinement.

Good reference here:

http://www.allpar.com/history/mopar/front-end-alignment.html

Find out where all the fast Mustang drag racers are going to get theirs done. These guys are using non stock specs and have had adjustable strut rods available to them for decades, so anyone who can set up one of these can do an old mopar.




F bodies don't use the older cam style adjustment. They are more like a GM with the arm bolted into the sub-frame on a serrated plate. You can get much better specs out of them without using special bushings or arms.




Even this is a bit outdated. By using higher caster numbers, you can reduce the static camber while improving the dynamic results.

Noted!

well I never swapped the tie rods or ball joints, everything was still nice and tight, being the car has been down more than its been up ( and she hasn't been driven much since I had been deploying alot and the wife hates driving her). so it was a full bushing swap front to back, finishing up the steering column rebuild (Thanks to FABO for the rebuild/bearing info) I will do a test drive soon, need to make sure i have my coolant demons sorted first, but thank you to all for the very helpful replies !!!

I know this is off topic but I am very curious what Volare you have? I have an '80 Aspen A38/E58.

'79 2dr SB7 Ensign blue metallic cloth bench non-ac car,original 225/904 7 1/4 car, now 408(400 BB) 727 8 1/4 2.94, leather buckets from a '00 tiburon, still no ac lol