DIY wheel alignment/tracking/camber etc

[Iain]

What's the ins and outs of doing this myself, if at all possible? I fancy playing with camber, toe etc settings on my Nova and £40-50 a pop at changing them is going to get quite costly (seems to be the price of local alignment places round here)

Would I just need a camber gauge (seem quite cheap?) and a second hand set of these 'tracking gauges'?

http://i.ebayimg.com/08/!CE3lCC!!2k~$(KGrHqV,!jME1JeBvEI1BNTVBjnLVg~~0_1.J PG

My daily needs the toe setting too since lowering so if it saves me money in the long run it's all good.

[Stuart]

String and plumb lines are all to need.

http://wiki.seloc.org/a/Geo_Alignment_Rig_(Home_Made)

[Iain]

I've tried the string technique before and I failed quite badly and found it quite fiddly, maybe I did it wrong. :)

[Stuart]

There is a fine art and patience needed.

[Iain]

Maybe the latter is what I was lacking lol Helped someone use those pictured in the first post and was impressed how easy it was to do.

[mowgli]

camber gauge..



http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDMzWDY1MA==/$(KGrHqJ,!hIE6Z3Ns),LBOuR5yVtT!~~60_12.JPG

[gary_126]

Its a sin paying these places to get suspension geometry set. As all my vehicles i always free off all parts/copper grease them etc (saves sum monkey going near my car with mole grips and burning gear melting paint and generally abusing my car) so its a 5min job at worst!

[Iain]

Yeah those are the ones I've seen, £30 or something, not bad. Might get one of those anyway so if all else fails I just need to get the toe set up elsewhere.

Edit: Got a question about those actually, assume you need to remove the wheel and rest the bottom balljoint on a jack in the running height in order to stick that on the disc to set it up?

[mowgli]

the local place that i sort of trust most, runs a tracking scam..

i had to sit in there waiting for a delivery of our tyres and watched them in action..
they claimed to check the alignment of every late model car, and miraculously they were all out... even though the gauge was on the shelf throughout.... and people all paid up... not one old knacker got 'checked', i told them i did not need my 2 degrees toe out fixing on my touran, and oddly it still runs straight & doesn't wear its tyres funny

[Stuart]

Or knock up a piece of square box steel with pins that touch the rim so you can stick the gauge to that.

[mowgli]

Yeah those are the ones I've seen, £30 or something, not bad. Might get one of those anyway so if all else fails I just need to get the toe set up elsewhere.

Edit: Got a question about those actually, assume you need to remove the wheel and rest the bottom balljoint on a jack in the running height in order to stick that on the disc to set it up?

i would imagine you do, stu's idea sounds good too

[Iain]

Cool sounds good, I'ma order one of those Gunson camber gauges to play with, suppose with the wheels off it's easy to tweak the camber bolts in situ too, win win.

Just the toe to ponder, I really don't have the patience for the string method lol:cry:

[pottersrebel]

ive got a home made tracking guage i use for my stockcar racin, hard explain so ill take some pics tomorrow but we only adjust the one wheel to toe out so dont know if it`ll work to set both

[mowgli]

point to ponder iain..

when we track up our wagons, we lock the steering straight, and measure from the front of the hubs to a central position on the chassis.

if you get your tracking set,you could measure from the inside front of the rims to a central point on the front crossmember

[Iain]

Is that to return it to a known point Mowgli? I'm hoping to "play" with settings on my driveway to try and improve it, so changing caster and camber settings will screw up any "safe measurement" like that I take?

Pottersrebel pics would be interesting :)

[mowgli]

Is that to return it to a known point Mowgli? I'm hoping to "play" with settings on my driveway to try and improve it, so changing caster and camber settings will screw up any "safe measurement" like that I take?
well, yes, if you know what it measures when tracked correctly. its easy to make a 3rd point to reference it to.


Pottersrebel pics would be interesting :)

for the road, tracking one side only isn't so brilliant, but it would be a good starting point

[adam c]

There's an app you can get for the iPhone that you can measure camber with and it is very very accurate.
A guy came into work for his alignment doing on his mk2 golf track car and he had done it at home with this app on his phone and a bit of string and a ruler/tape measure for his toe and it was as accurate as our £25,000 purpose built ramp and machine!he set it at 3'00 degrees negative camber off his phone and one side was bang on 3' degrees and the other side iirc was 2'59 degrees!so was only 1 minute out which is very very good!

[Benn]

My mate Petor has the set up gauge on the first post. They are ok to set the tracking to each other.. But not straight to the car... What i've noticed then they ave used them. I just pay to get it done by lazor.

Saying that, could you get a pen style lazor thing. Place it on the center of each wheel, shine at a wall, make on the wall by using maths the measurements.. Then you can do it to the car....?

[pottersrebel]

will take some tomoz when i go down ma garage m8

[Iain]

There's an app you can get for the iPhone that you can measure camber with and it is very very accurate.
A guy came into work for his alignment doing on his mk2 golf track car and he had done it at home with this app on his phone and a bit of string and a ruler/tape measure for his toe and it was as accurate as our £25,000 purpose built ramp and machine!he set it at 3'00 degrees negative camber off his phone and one side was bang on 3' degrees and the other side iirc was 2'59 degrees!so was only 1 minute out which is very very good!

Found one for Android too, £1.85. Not sure I could trust it and the reviews are hit and miss, guess it depends on your phone hardware. Less than £25 posted can get me a Gunson camber tool so that won't break the bank

[Mieran]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYqM6LgduT8

[Iain]

Nice video, those steering turntables are over £200 ouch! Will need to work out another way of turning exactly 20 degrees to calculate caster...

[mowgli]

2 bits of ply with a wodge of grease between them...

if you use 3/4 ply then put a bolt thru the centre, they will turn fine.

[Iain]

Funnily enough just found this guide for polycarbonate similar to that http://www.arkansaspontiacs.org/techstories/turnplates/turnplates.html

[mowgli]

if you are handy with a router, you could make one without the bolt, using the outer bit screwed to the base.. then you could also mark angles with a pencil on it.

[Benn]

Found one for Android too, £1.85. Not sure I could trust it and the reviews are hit and miss, guess it depends on your phone hardware. Less than £25 posted can get me a Gunson camber tool so that won't break the bank

You can get it Free, i have it and use it..

[brainsnova]

I done my mums polo by eye and was 2 degrees out lol