Squealing still after alignment???

My 72 Dart is still Squealing after alignment, It done fine before on mountain curves, put New leaf springs on, drove it & on some mountain curves it has light squealing, but on flat curves it don't, So I go to have a alignment & front raised up a little, seem like it went straight, rides a little smother, but drove it back up on the mountain & its still squealing around some curves,.. & I drove it just the same as I all way have before I put leaf springs on!.. The springs are in the holes, Could I over tighten the u bolts on one side & it do that?... He set the setting for everyday driving!.. Any suggestions?...

Maybe the new springs have changed the slop in the suspension and you are pushing too hard on the new more solid set up. I also would think for a cornering car you would want the front lower not higher. Over tightening the Ubolts won't effect the handling. You want them tight enough that the rear end won't move on the perches.

If you're sure it's in the leaf spring area, it would be a pain, but you could pull the bolts out and smear some more grease up in the eye holes.

I had a squeaking issue after replacing the hangers and rear springs.
Drove me crazy until I took it all apart and found interference between the 2.
Once a ground a little on the hanger it solved the problem.

Are you talking about tires squealing or suspension squeaking? If it is tires squealing then Does it handle any different when it makes this noise? Does the front or rear of the car push you out? If you changed the spring rate significantly it can and will affect the handling. It's a balancing act between the front and rear.

You're going too fast in the turns.

Does it have a Sure-Grip or even a spool? If so, tire squeal is very normal on hard & / or fast turns.

I saw on hear in tech archive you can't go by factory specs, don't anybody have anything to say on that???... So you can't go by the old repair books?
So the rear can't be off as long as its in the hole's?

I assume you mean tire scrub squealing? I was working on a clone Six pack Super Bee yesterday and installing the Dana from a complete rebuild. I dropped the springs out to paint them and noticed the right side spring perch had two thin shims in it. I assume someone had a four wheel alignment. It is a well done car. Maybe check the alignment on all four corners

There is no rear alignment on that vehicle. If the rear is off the geometric centerline and thrust angle will be off. Alignment machine will show this. If it is off, the rear spring perch is broken, or loose. If the car has radial tires I set camber as close to zero degrees +/- 1/2 degree....try to get as much positive caster as possible. Usually hard to do if still has factory front suspension. FirmFeel.com has great parts. Toe-in 0 -1/32" in total.

You can actually alter the rear alignment by using the shims mentioned in one of the above posts. Adding shims between the front spring hanger and the mounting boss on the car will effectively push the rear wheel on that same side towards the back of the car thus altering the relative position of both rear wheels to the front wheels slightly.

the build quality back in those days was horrible. the rear could be in there located anywhere, with up to 1/2" variation from factory blueprints without having broken, or worn out parts.
very easy, but labor intensive, to relocate closer to specs by shims and slotting holes where needed.
measure closely [twice or more] before cutting [hole slotting, shimming] once.

Are you pushing the car faster now than before the work?
If so your now making the tire work harder to go around the corners and it is talking to you maybe saying your on the edge, dude
If your not going faster around the corners now something is not right with that work
Let us know what you find out and do to take care of it

I'm kind of with Cab on this, if everything is correct (big IF) are you going faster through those curves now?

What are your alignment specs? Everyday driving specs don't mean much to me. I'd like to see the angles and degrees. There are many, Many, MANY alignment places where an alignment consists of setting toe and nothing else. If this is the case with the shop you used, there are several ways your alignment could STILL be off, possibly by a lot, despite the fact you paid for and they claim it was aligned.

Well I been driving it & its steal doing it on 3 sharp curves, Its a short tire squeal or you could say a tire chirp, I took it back to wear I had alignment & he sead it seems fine & it just my tires, but if it my tires why did it not do it before, I know better then that, So I've been just driving it, its not as loud now, with music on you don't hear it. Something I am wondering about is can you over tighten leaf springs u bolts because they do look it to me???

Rare, but I will quote myself;

More pics

By the looks of that spring pack, I would suspect you may have one or more broken leafs. Even if the leafs are not broken, the ends of each spring could be dragging on the longer leaf above it, that could give you a squeak as the suspension moves up and down. If you jack the car up, and look at the ends of each spring leaf, you may be able to see scraping or wear marks on the longer leaf. Gene

So new springs can be broken??? I hope not, lot of work putting them on!

Post a copy of the alignment sheet. That will show where this car is set at.

That spring in the first pic is BAD. It's either very weak or has no spring tension left in it. Were those made in China? You can't tighten the u-bolts too tight that would cause those sagging leafs. I'd get those springs off the car before they break and cause you to wreck your car. That spring has failed.

I thought I was seeing things at first with that pic of the leafs, but nope, they have a problem...

I got them from Springs n Things a little over a year a go, because I hear a lot of people have been happy with them, It rides a lot better from my old springs that was flat, gets lots more grip now, just a little tire squeal on sharp mountain curves!

Man that will be a lot of work to take them back off!.. So if you guys think their not right then maybe I should get a hold of springs n things & see if they will send me another set or something!

And you think that is a problem?

Sounds like something to be expected to me. Maybe slow down and not hit those curves at 80.

Probably a bad heat treat, send them pics and let us know what they say. Or your axle is twisted and the other side is ok, and it has tweaked the passenger side spring. Take pics of both sides and post them where we can see the springs where the Ubolts are not blacked out by the drum, wheel and tire. Tim

I am sick of people saying this, I am not pushing it, I have drove it the same speed I all ways have on them curves, It did not do it before so why now?.. & if my springs are not right then that may be it!

A recommendation for you that I have had to work on myself is to not take things too serious on the internet. Some Moparts members can be brutal and not intending to be when giving advice.

first pic is of pass. & the other is driver

I would suspect there is a serious problem with the springs. Now that am looking closer, it seems like the spring is twisted up in the front on the drivers and down on the passengers side? if so that means your tubes are twisted in the housing or the perches were welded on wrong. Its hard to tell with the light on the one pic...and I am trying to respond in this post and then go back and look at the pics again.

How is your pinion angle? have you measured it?
Maybe someone else can chime in?

You asked about pinion angle....to a guy that does not understand why his tires are squealing....

I didn't see any tire size listed, saw no pictures of tires, saw no copy of the alignment sheet or even the exact specs to which it was aligned.
You want help but are making it hard to BE helped with all these missing bits of information.
I'll state this:
IF the alignment guy set the car to stock specs for a manual steering car, that is not good. If he set it to the factory specs for a power steering car, that is not a whole lot better. Many times, these alignment guys are lazy and unmotivated to deviate from the factory settings. I have seen it many times...A guy takes his classic Mopar in and comes back with positive camber, no caster and 1/8" toe in.
No, that is not a good alignment for today's tires or today's driver.
You do not want to ever have positive camber. It will almost always result in less caster than ideal. 1/2 degree of negative camber is great and despite what the uneducated fools may say, it will not result in extreme wear of the inside edges of the tires. Excessive toe OUT will but 1/2 degree of negative camber aids in cornering and high speed stability. Get ALL the positive caster that can be achieved. Match the left and right sides. FORGET the old rule about aligning for the crown of the road where the tech sets the camber positive on the left and negative on the right. Make both sides even. Caster makes the car stable in a straight line and helps keep the outside tire more evenly squared up to the road in turns. A car with more caster will drive straight when you let go of the wheel on a straight road.

Finally.....Was it THIS guy that did the alignment ??

Is it just me or does that first picture of the left side spring look like a rusty old spring and not a new one? Look how nice the paint is on the other. Could the first picture be the old spring picture by mistake? If not it's terrible.

Your spring packs look bent. Like they were severely overloaded, jumped, or subjected to high horsepower drag launches and wrapped up beyond their strength point. But, that is an entirely separate topic from the tire squealing after alignment.

When you changed the springs, it changed the ride height, which alters the alignment angles. If your alignment was on the edge of acceptable prior to the change and your tires were worn in to these angles, the spring change put it past the point where your tires were worn and now you are wearing them in on a new angle, which makes them squeal.

As requested by several, please post a photo of the alignment spec sheet. Simply saying it is set to daily driver specs doesn't mean anything. That's like saying you have a 3/4 race cam. If they did not provide a spec sheet, then we have nothing to go on. Ask them if they have a copy. If they cannot produce this, odds are they did not do it correctly and we still have nothing to go by. So you have two choices, have them redo it to specs below and demand the spec sheet, or find another shop and have them check it to teh specs below and provide you a spec sheet.




No, I wouldn't use the factory alignment specs for a regular driver using radial tires. The original alignment specs were designed for bias ply tires. Bias ply tires have a very narrow range in which they operate efficiently. Radials have a much wider range of operation. This is why you can use more aggressive alignment specs to create better handling by using a radial. IMO, since you aren't providing alignment specs to us, I'd take a guess that the shop actually gave you positive camber (which was sometimes necessary with bias plys) and now your tires are protesting the bad angle by squealing. If you go to a new shop, heck, even if you go back to your old shop, ask them to align it to 2005 Mustang GT specs. When they say they can't meet the caster figure, tell them to do the best they can. When they are done, ask for the spec so you can see the before and after difference, enjoy your drive home with the new, improved angles, report back here.

Then we can talk about your interesting spring configuration. FWIW, bent springs do work. They aren't optimal and should be fixed, but they will perform their basic function of locating the axle and allowing suspension motion.

Those leaf springs make it look liker my ex wife and two of her fat friends are in the trunk.

If the rear springs are not functioning correctly (and by the photo of the one spring, they can't be functioning correctly), the car will not corner as well as it could. Front end alignment won't cure the rear spring issue. Gene

[quote=Frankenduster]Those leaf springs make it look liker my ex wife and two of her fat friends are in the trunk.

that sounds like a good plan/info. yes, as much positive caster as they can get

And equal on both sides, within reason.

For instance.....let’s say the max caster they can get is 1 degree positive on one side but 3.5 degrees on the other.

You don’t want that much difference. In that example I would go for 1 degree and maybe 1.5 degrees.

Also...if the techs aren’t familiar with their machines it can be very confusing if they input YOUR vehicle into the set up cause the machine will pull up factory specs and create go / no-go windows on the display screen. These windows won’t be what you are after. Hopefully they know how to input the specs into the machine.

Any real alignment guy wouldn't even have to be told what to do. He would see the radials and adjust the specs accordingly. Since there are not a lot of great alignment techs out there, that is why I suggest telling them '05 Mustang GT. Any maroon probably has these auto programmed to their late model alignment equipment. However at 7*, an old mopar will never get the same caster angle which is why you tell them to give me all you can. Telling the same maroon who can only do toe and go to give you fractional measurements is only going to lead to grief.