G Man

Thanks for the info

SteveG

I went to a Sears that had the Hunter. Old guy running the shop looked at my car and said no. I don't know what his personal history w/Pcars was but I had to drive a little farther to find a shop that would work with me as I was buying tires first so it needed to settle. The tech drove a couple miles, it hadn't settled (measured); when I tactfully showed him my measurements; I left my license and drove it myself to be sure it was settled. Sometimes owning a pcar is a test of your communication skills.

Richard S

Go to Sears, take a printout of the workshop manual pages pertaining to the alignment proceedure. Go there early, be the first customer, talk to the guy that will do the alignment and review the pages with him. My guy was enthusiastic to do a 928, rather than the usual minivan, economy car, sedan etc. No complaints from me, I drove the car that weekend in the Pony Express ORR up to 155mph, totally stable.

Rich

Chazz

I had good luck at a NEW Firestone store with all-new Hunter equipment. This is the setup:
http://www.hunter.com/pub/product/al...946T/index.htm

G Man

So will anything above the 400 series work with our cars?

GUMBALL

With all due respect, and not to belittle any alignment shop (there ARE good ones out there).....

BUT, it is not so much the equipment (or lack of) ......

..the person actually doing the alignment is MUCH more important......


Out of necessity, I have done an alignment by "stringing" the car - 4 jackstands and fishing line to do the toe, a bubble level camber gauge to do the caster and camber.

Shark Attack

have the hunter rep fax you the specs. they can plug them in and align the car.

JPTL

Jim, I think that aside from finding an experienced tech who's comfortable with the machine, he'll also need the correct software for your car.
I recall that there were 928-specific graphics (similar to line drawings in a shop manual) that the machine generated when the year, make and model was keyed in. These cars are so unique suspension-wise - particularly the rear, that I would venture a guess that such a pictoral step-by-step would be a necessity for the alignment tech, along with the specs.
BTW, I took a look at the Hunter-generated printout that I got when Sears did my alignment. It refers to being the settings for a 91-95 S4, GT, GTS; so the specs are apparently non-applicable to an '84.

dr bob

WSM states that the caster settings, increased for the later cars, are backwards-compatible for earlier cars. That may explain the printout.

fraggle

Software? I don't get it, if you bring a set of specs, shouldn't a competent shop just be able to meet them? Isn't the machine just a large expensive ruler, when you get right down to it?

Richard S

I requested extra caster specifically for the ORR, which the Sears tech dialed in for me.

Rich

dr bob

The machine also displays a diagram with pictures of all the adjustment points for the particular car. It allows an otherwise inexperienced technician to do at least a fair job. Kinda like paint-by-numbers, but you still have to keep the colors between the lines.

G Man

I spoke with the alignment tech at another shop today. They have the Hunter DSP 400 machine. He showed me the machine and he pulled up the info on the display for my car. The instructions given by the machine says to roll the car back once the clamps are on the wheels. It shows the required specs for the wheels. I saw no pictures while we were looking over the precedure unless they were on other pages. I am taking the car in on Sat a.m. to get it done. My front tires are very worn on the inner tread. I am guessing this is from my last alignment. Hopefully this one will work out better. I plan on taking some pics while the car is being done and will post them along with my printout. Wish me luck!

Randy V

I'm sure you know this, but you must first install new tires, then settle the car before the alignment, Jim.

G Man

I was hoping to get a few more miles out of my current tires. They are not worn through to the cords yet, just very worn on the inside. I would guess the rest of the tire has 75% of the tread left on it. Both sides. The rears are still like new, almost.