Bill Ball

I've never found a shop that has the tool to pull the car back down. They just grab and yank. Not effective.

AO

OK, thanks for answering. So ideally, you want tow in between 7' 30" and 10' on each side - or in decimal format between 0.125 and 0.167 degrees.

This finally makes sense to me. Thanks. Now I just have to check to see where I'm at.

Emickelsen

WOW what a difference!! Unbelievable! I've made the rough adjustments to just slightly toe in (plus a little tweek on the passenger side to fix that slight pull to the right). The steering DID feel heavy, and the car just seemed to be struggling down the road. Like i was pushing a dump truck or something. Now it feels great. My god, it's a whole new car. I'm suprised I was even able to drive it befor. Now I really can't wait for the real alignment.

Thanks again to all of you!! It doesn't look good for me to make that next clinic however. I'll just have to drive down and hit a reccomended shop on some Monday.

dr bob

E.--

If Mondays are your day-to-play, we can probably arrange a session for you here if your local alignment shop can't do it sans lifting. I have a project that's supposed to take me out of town next Monday, though.

If the car was pulling to one side after just a toe change, the car still needs some help. If you were centering the steering wheel after adjusting one side too much, that's different.

Glad you are getting some results, by the way. Your tire store is going to miss all those visits!

Emickelsen

A monday would be great. Just about any monday for me. You don't have to do a special one just for me, but it would be HUGELY appreciated. Maybe a Sunday for another mini clinic, so others might be able to come to. Either day is good, and of no consequence to me. Sunday/Monday are my normal days off.

Actually it was pulling befor the change. Now it tracks very straight. I do feel it should still have a real alignment done though. I would rather have it done by someone who I am confident knows what they are doing. Thanks a ton, again!

Benton

Great thread! I'm in the process of doing my alignment as well, and I have a question. Starting from scratch, this method of using the trapezoid and measuring both sides at once won't work perfectly, will it? Hypothetical situation: say I am going for 0 toe in the front, and I shoot the lasers and the measurement is the same at a distance as up close. How can I tell that one wheel isn't toed in 1 degree and the other toed out one degree? I assume I will have to do each side individually as Earl has documented so well (thanks!).

AO

The only way I know to make sure you're dead on is to mark where your wheels are then how far out your targets will be (say 48"). Then measure the diagonals from the tires to where you're recording the laser dots.

Using Bill's Diagram 2:

You would measure from point A to point C to come up with distance X. You then compare this to distance D-B or as I call it X1. If X = X1, then you've got 90* angles at ABCD.

Then to make sure you have equal toe on each side you would center distance "little b" between points B and C.

dr bob

Let's start off with the zero toe idea. The reason that toe-in is specified is so that the wheels will be perfectly straight when all the wear and play in the front suspension and steering is preloaded while actually driving. If you have rigid pivots, non-deforming bushings and perfectly tight ball joints and tie rods, zero might be an OK static setting. You decide.

On to the geometry--

If the rack is centered (with the centering bolt is most desirable) and/or the steering wheel is centered, a "toe in" on one side and an equal "toe out" on the other side will make the car go straight down the road with the steering wheel not centered.

The method that I shared early in the process uses a pre-calculated trapezoid to help you set toe in. With your targets 84" apart, each 5 mins of toe is 1/8" difference in width between the beams. For instance, I measured 30" forward from the center of each wheel, and put a tape mark on the floor. Measured out 84" from there, and put another mark on the floor in front of each front wheel. So now there are marks at 30" from wheel center and 114" from wheel center, in front of each front wheel. 4 Masking-tape tabs, in a rectangle, on the floor in front of the car.

Now turn the lasers on facing directly forward (level, not down at the ground...), and make a mark on each tape directly below where the beam passes overthe tape. I used a carpenter's square, but you can easily use a plumb bob or whatever you want, just so the mark on the tape is directly below the beam. Now you have four marks. Measure the distance between the marks 30" away, and between the marks 114" away. When you have the toe set correctly, the marks at 114" out will be 3/8" closer together than the marks on the 30" tape tabs. That's for the spec 15 minutes (one quarter of one degree) of toe-in. If you really want to start off with zero toe-in, the inner and outer measurements would be identical.

If your steering wheel is straight ahead now when driving on a road that has no camber/tilt to it, you can be fairly comfortable making exactly the same adjustments to both tie rods as you get your toe where you want it. Borrowing a little from the Earl Gillstrom bible, you can then turn the lasers towards the rear of the car, and verify that the beams are equal distances from the centers of the rear wheels on both sides. This assures you that the front wheels are in fact equally adjusted and the front of the car will track with the axis of the car going down the road. If they two distances are close but different, figure out the average of the two distances there, and adjust the two tie-rods until both distances match the average number you came up with. RECORD THAT NUMBER!! If you can use the same fixture to check toe in the future, all you'll need to do is verify that the beam distance at the rear wheels meets your recorded average number, and your toe will be exactly the same every time.

HTH!

Emickelsen

dr bob, you need to consider making a home do-it-yourself video for all this. That's awesome stuff!!

Bill Ball

My simple approach....You get the front wheel total toe correct, ideally with the rack centered using a centering bolt (but this cannot be done on the ground with the bellypans on). Then drive the car (after removing the centering bolt!). If the steering wheel is way off center with the car going straight down the road on a level surface, you pull off the steering wheel and move it on the splines until you get it as close as possible to center. You can still be off a few degrees, as with the number of splines available, you can only get so close. If so, you must slightly adjust each tie rod in opposite directions to center the steering wheel. This will make the rack very slightly off center.

Additional note: There are twice as many splines on the steering rack U-joint than on the steering wheel end of the steering column shaft. If the steering wheel is off-center right between two steering wheel splines, I will detach the lower U-joint from the rack and move it over one tooth. That allows the rack and steering wheel to be centered. It's a bit of a pain to do this and probably does not result in any real benefit. If the rack is off-center, it can introduce some handling issues, but nothing is wrong with a tooth off.

The rear wheel toe is a separate issue. There is no easy way to center things as I describe for the front wheels. So, there needs to be a reference to the centerline of the car or some other way to get individual toe. I don't think we have addressed that in this thread yet. Unequal toe in the rear will cause the car to pull to one side despite correct total toe. So, total toe is not a useful paramater for rear wheels.

dr bob

Following the same idea about centering the rear wheel path on the front wheels, one could center the beams outside of the front wheels, measuring from each beam to the center cap of the front wheel to make sure they are the same. With rear toe correct -and- the front of the car centered between the beams, the rear wheels should be concentric with the centerline of the car.

We may do a parking-lot clinic at the Sharktoberfest event on Saturday. I'll pack the lasers, tape measure, masking tape, marker pen, carpenter's square, a level, a 15mm wrench, a 22mm wrench, a couple drill bits, and a piece of carpet. Maybe some gloves too. We won't need a calculator or computer, just a notepad and some simple addition/subtraction skills. Emickelsen will graciously volunteer his car as a demo vehicle. We'll be doing front toe adjustments only, since we don't have a level pad to do caster/camber measurements. The lasers fixtures are drilled to fit 17" and 18" wheels right now. Do they need to fit 16" wheels on the volunteer car? I can drill for those if needed.

I'll bring the video camera too so we can save the clinic for posteriority.

Bill Ball

That would be great, dr. bob.

Oh, hey, I just got one of these to serve as a "target" for the lasers to eliminate tape measuring the laser dots. It makes it a single person job.

http://www.drillspot.com/products/74..._Straight_Edge

Arrived in perfect condition. Just need to make some pedestals for it.

dr bob

Pedestals look a lot like jackstands in my neighborhood. What else are you bringing? The demo really needs to be collaborative, if you don't mind sharing the spotlight.

My guess is you couldn't find a nice 7' straightedge, right? That 8' one may need to go on the roof rack...

Bill Ball

Hah. I haven't checked to see if it will fit in the car. With my laser setup I'm usually shooting 83-85" spread, so 7' would have been right on the edge. I suppose jackstands with a simple piece of wood with a slot to hold the straightedge would do it. Your procedure is slightly different from mine. I still never got the hang of the carpenter square for locating the laser beam spread at the source, so I still shoot 2 sets of targets: one close and one far. I be learning right along with everyone else.

Charley B

Remove one foot. WaLaa!