firemn131

Thanks,
I was wondering the same thing.
will head out to check part numbers. It is an early 87, so it has presented with some mid year part changes.

ador117

Bonjour,
Everything is ready to proceed alignment rigging. Wooden ramps are build to rise the car on slip plates and to be able to swap them during alignment (front/rear).
Before that I check camber and toe :
Camber : I have 0.7 front and 0.9 rear. I plan to do 1.2 front and 1.8 rear.
I have too much negative toe front and rear. I used 2 different methods that gives the same result : dr bob's method and a mix of the video and Captain Earl's methods.
Dr Bob's method is supposed to be good even if the laser is not calibrated but as the other method was successful, I conclude that my laser is accurate.
To make sure I tried to calibrate it but I get a strange results using a 4 meter aluminum straight edge :

On one edge the laser is perfectly aligned but on the other edge the beam is 5mm down at 4 meters (157"). It is a new one and I get a similar result on an old one but on that one the beam was perfect on one edge and few mm up at 3 meters on the other edge...
It is normal/common to have such a difference only on one edge of the straight edge?

Raphaël

dr bob

Yup. The lasers are not identical. On mine I did a lot of measurng and shimming to get the beams parallel with the base. Lots of measuring twisting shimming. Then decided that it's not that important that they be perfect, but it s imperative that they be the same. Hence the method change to measuring to the floor equidistant ahead of and behind the front wheels. So long as the aim of the two assemblies is the same, you can shoot towards the rear and stay centered by measurement to rear wheel centers. If you don't need that capability, no need to make the two the same at all. But since it's so very simple to make them the same, why not?

I was crawling through the garage attic for Christmas decorations, and was reminded that I have a couple sticks of the 2" extruded aluminum box tubing sitting there, along with a stick of aluminum anle for the stand-off sections. Need to go see what's currently available in cheap laser levels. I could use a couple matching laser pointers in a pinch. Might be time for a build guide. Car is up on tall stands for winter hibernation so no aligment demos for several months though. Don't let that slow anybody else down though. Got a table saw and a way to make two 24" paralled-side straight sections of 2x4? You can as easily make a fixture out of wood. So long as it never warps of twists.

ador117

Bonjour,
I have finished my alignment!!! It has been long the time I found how to proceed and how to better measure but I'm happy with the result :
- I followed Mark K and rjtw advises : 1.2 degree camber front and 1.8 in the back,
- as Mark recommend, I try to put minimum toe I could (within spec) in the back,
- on the road, I was prepared to have more effort to steer the wheels in some conditions but... no... even on tight round about as we have a lot here in France, the car engage them easily. And on curves at speed... the car seems to like a lot the new settings... The back looks to behave different... and better sit in the curves... With my gearbox reworked, it is as if I have a new car!!!!
I'm looking forward next track day...

The only issue I have... there is one... is toe in the front. I had difficulties to align and have all the methods saying the same thing... And after driving, the toe was different and out of spec... Alter investigation the issue is due to a lack of stiffness on the steering rack. I have no play but the shaft of the rack is bending on the passenger side when I pull or push the wheel in and out. I changed the steering rack bushings by delrin bushings 2 years ago but noticed no real improvement after that. But I noticed no degradation since I have the car.
Maybe the rack needs to be reconditioned?
So as I will not redo everything this year, I try to put maximum spec toe... hoping it will be enough...

I post the spreadsheet I did to calculate my alignment in case It could help or if someone has remarks or recommendations. It looks complicated but I found it useful to do a progressive alignment. The measurements are to be filled in the greens cells you don't need to measure everything to get results. All the other cells are calculated.
Raphaël

ador117

Bonjour Bulvot,
Thank you for your information. And yes I found your website and read it also with great interest like this thread. And I have been inspired by your set up with your ramps, so I build mine... thank you.
But I also find interesting thinks here, in particular the video that help me to understand better dr bob method and captain Earl's one too...
It is a complex process that need personal investment in order to understand what we are doing.
And as you said, by ourselves, it is an iterative process that could need a lot of time to understand what we are doing and what this will do on our car behavior...
There is no choice : spending years... or relying on other people experiences...
I choose to rely on other people experience in this forum... and I think that in about one month, I progressed a lot because of all experience shared!
So thank you for your efforts to formalize your experience and you methods, and thank you too to all people in this thread that did the same, including whose, like me, that could have wrote thinks that could be improved. What is important is moving forward.
It was so long for me to proceed to this first alignment because I had too much to learn. I spent a lot of time finding how to proceed, how to learn how to be more precise while measuring.
But now. learning from all of you, I can measure front or rear toe with my laser very quickly and I hope, with enough accuracy to make sure I'm within spec... because learning all that... with different methods, I'm now able to detect my car imperfections... in particular my steering rack wear or stiffness...
With the laser and a toe gauge on the other wheel train to visualize the laser dot, you could visually realize what's going on...
I'm not sure you could check and visualize that with the string method as easily than the laser.
I'm like you... convinced of what I work hard to achieve. And I respect what you take time to formalize on your web site.

For me, the judge will be, next week, when I will check in a specialized shop what the guy will measure with his specialized bench... and what he will think about my steering rack issue... and my alignment...
And I will see if what I did worth the time I invested in! And if the laser method I practiced is accurate enough...

Raphaël

dr bob

Raphael --

Inner tie rod wear looks a lot like rack end bushing wear. If you car has more than ~~75k miles on it, you'll benefit from changing the whole tie rods inner and outer.