DIY Alignment Ideas?

I need to align a couple cars and would like to do it myself. Don't trust local shops anymore with the old stuff. Building tools, etc, not a problem. Doing some google searches and just looking any advice on what to do or not, etc.Low buck is my middle name here so I'm not going to buy a $400 kit.

Thanks.

I bought a simple kit from Speedway motors and made turn plates from pieces of masonite with grease between. Did the toe adjustment with a tape measure.

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Economy-Caster-Camber-Gauge,2699.html

I paid a local shop to do the alignment first, told the guy I wanted as much caster as possible. Moron didn't understand that means as much as you can get with both sides being the same. I ended up with a car that would run in circles.

Done my own alignments for years now.

Amazing how nice my Challenger drives compared to friends so called professional aligned cars

Over the years collected a magnetic caster/ camber gauge, Old style alignment shop type.

Turntables and use some wood boards and tape measure for toe

There are single magnetic gauges for pretty cheap. Would this do what we need on our cars?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Universal-Truck-...l-/281761607963

http://www.longacreracing.com/products.aspx?itemid=1798&prodid=7218&pagetitle=Caster+%2f+Camber+Gauge+w%2f+Magnetic+Adapter

Longacre is good stuff used by racers.

I had a friend who set his toe using plumb bobs. I approximate the setup on a flat piece of concrete using a carpenter's square and marks on the concrete.

R.

It will work in theory. But..

You'll need to hook that onto the spindle accurately with the wheel on with the load of the car for it to be practical.

For me, some disk hubs don't have flat machined surfaces around the snout of their bearing housings. And sometimes there is very little room in there next to an aluminum rim. Like a Crager or Torque Thrust with a raised area around the spindle. And there really isn't a flat surface on the tip of the spindle.

So I went up to the rim clamp version. About $240 on amazon.

It was expensive, but within that I did gain a digital angle finder tool that I can use for carpentry, pinion angle, or whatever. The angle finder just magnetically sits in the tool. Just pulls right off to use for whatever.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VAS...A1J30JMN22XACTH

I used two melamine board with grease between them for turnplates. Just cause we had them. Sheet metal will work fine too.

IIRC, we got the caster to around 3 degrees. Not bad with the K-frame to body spacers and the high ride height. It's manual steer, so didn't want much more anyways. It has moog 7103 offset bushings.

We set toe with a tape measure to within 1/16"

Can drive down highway and let go of wheel and will drive straight.

Not bad for tiny bias ply tires on a Hemi Dart.

I spent 200 bucks on this tool. It was a good investment. Fast trax is what it's called. It helps you do all three settings including toe. Works well!

I leveled my turn plates side to side.

Turn plates are 14 ga steel with grease in between them. They were scrap and free. That's all it takes on our old cars.


I've done 4 cars now and drove plenty of miles, works reAL GOOD AND IS NICE TO MAKE CHANGES AND GO DRIVE THE CAR AND feel the changes. Then It's nice to recheck and make sure it's not changing. Buy your own tool is so worth it and don't have any bozos driving your car after they try to align it.

This

http://www.summitracing.com/oh/parts/sps-91000/overview/

http://www.amazon.com/Specialty-Products-Company-91000-FasTrax/dp/B000PG6OW2

Note that the kit to do toe is additional $$

For swivel plates use vinyl tiles with salt in between. Less mess than grease.

Yup,
Grease is no mess and keeps the plates together for storage. Don't have to regrease them when I used them 4 times so far. I don't want salt on my floor when I'm done and go to move the plates/tiles.

That's another issue. The shops want you to drop your car off for the day. I'm like hell no. Thus I haven't gotten it aligned yet.

What's; the procedure to make a tapered one to a flanged one ?
Rear end that is, I wanna keep the housing if possible

I always made a Saturday appointment and I stayed with my car. They had a real old guy do it, he only worked a couple days a week and 1/2 day Saturday was one of them. The shop is right across the street from my shop and we know each other. I got to watch and go for the test drive with the old mechanic driving the car after the alignment. He did a OK job I think? But how could I ever know one way or another other by how the car drove. That's all the mechanic was looking for. Now I am much more picky about my setup, it's not stock.

When he retired altogether is when I bought the tool. Should have bought it 10 years earlier, been much easier and cheaper.

My alignment "rack" lol

Well it looks like I just need a magnetic caster/camber angle finder, some angle and pins to make a wheel surface mount. I should be able to fab that up.

Yup not really that complicated, keeps us "up to speed" on your tool.

There are Apps for that.
Pretty much every modern smartphone can be used as a angle finder.

I aligned my Dart with my iPhone and an app called "iAlign", and later used one called "CamberMeas" which has become my favorite.
In the latter app you can enter your car's steeringratio and it will let you turn the steeringwheel one turn left and right.


The most tricky part is being able to mount the phone securely/square and easy removable while being able to get repeatable results when checking the left and right wheels.

Tremec has a cool driveshaft/trans/diff angle one too I've used a few times now.




What if you get a call in the middle of an alignment?




New voicemail idea...

Hi, this is Jeff...sorry I can't answer your call but I am setting my camber at the moment. Leave a number and I'll call you back when I am at 3/4 of a degree negative.

No, you just put it on speaker... but only as long as you steer the conversation in the correct direction ofcourse

I used this tool

http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/product/1934/Caster_Camber_Gauges

and at the time, harbor freight sold (on their website only) a toe gauge.

I remember thinking, wow this is easy. And it drove very well. When I measured, I know I didn't get as much caster as people said I wanted. But it drives great at all speeds, so I didn't worry about it.

This pretty good video, Part 1 of 3, will get you started for almost $0 if you already have basic tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZoL1gaWedA

That tool Exit1965 posted seems like it may be the ticket. Price is right and it reads in 1/8 degree increments.

I used the speedway motors one on my car, a tape, to do the toe and some admittedly single use ceramic tiles for turn plates. So far so good. I ordered some $150 turn plates which should help make that easier in future uses. My old wheels worked well with the center caps removed with that gauge. Any set of stock wheels would work fine. Drives really nice.

From the videos mentioned above, sprinkling a little salt between cheap linoleum tiles works plenty good for turn plates.