What's new
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

Anybody do their own alignments?

AJMBLAZER

AJMBLAZER

Better to be lucky than good.
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
May 18, 2000
Posts
26,649
Reaction score
7,930
Location
Paducah, KY
In the past few months I've had all three of my vehicles aligned by the same shop. They have a good reputation for service and the local 4x4 shop uses them for their alignments.

The Suzuki turned out fine with no issues.
Big Ugly they seem to have got it pretty good but then there's such a change with the radial tires and ORD steering brace that I can't be sure how much of the bumpsteer from before is gone and how much new I have thanks to the 1" lift.:confused:
Only problem is they didn't center the steering wheel.

Today I had my Tracker in and they aligned it...well...one tire. The camber seems great on the driver's side but the passenger side appears like they didn't touch it and the top of the tire is till pointing outboard noticeably...they're getting a call tomorrow morning about this.

So I'm out almost $200 for these three alignments and well...I have a luke warm feeling about all of it that might change depending on how they handle my phone call tomorrow.

Anybody do their own alignments on daily driven vehicles? As in completely from scratch themselves and not with any help from professionals?
What sort of tools do you have?

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?
 
Kert told me one time its easy on the old GM trucks, I dont know whats all involved though.
 
caster pulls to least positive so sometimes we put more caster on the passenger side due to road crown. and camber pulls to most positive so we put more on the driver side due to road crown. this all helps it pull to the left (but you don't or shouldn't feel that) and your toe might be making your wheel out of alignment, or they just didn't center it and lock it during the alignment. but you are given a "total toe" and that needs to be put equal as possible on both side (total/2) so when you start driving the wheel doesn't "self center". post up your numbers

and the top of the tire on your tracker pointing outboard noticeably? that means they have positive camber, and i don't think that is good if you can see that. if anything you want negative camber. and not alot depending on the car. but every car is different.

hope this helps a little, it is the rules of aligning and how the angles work. there are alot more angles they should print with it. SAI, IA, TOOT, thrust angle. a good shop in my opinion will print all of those with it.

places like firestone and pep boys are a joke when they do alignments(not sure if they ar around you) but an alignment should take 1 hour for the front and 1 hour for the back is what they tell me.

i have seen alignments done with a tape measure string, and a weight. hehe but thats not the best when these alignment machines are so sick

sorry this is so long i kind of got into it. hope it help. good luck.
 
Drey, that's what I've heard too.

Just makes me wonder...


...I can pretty much remove and replace every component involved with an alignment or the front suspension of all of my vehicles...so why not do the alignments myself. At least I'd know who to thump when the tires wear funny.



Hazy, yeah, that's about what I was thinking. Like I said, they're giving me a luke warm feeling and I don't think I will be back other than to get this addressed.
Alignments are one of the few things I don't do myself and you know...wouldn't mind being able to do myself.
 
i give up, can;t find what im looking for. but those will help if you want to do it yourself. good luck.
 
With big ugly, the only thing that gets adjusted is the toe in/toe out, cause its a solid front axle. You can find the alignment specs, and measure between front inside edge of both wheels, and rear inside edge, and set the toe that way.

With the ifs cars, let teh shop to it.....too many adjustemnts to do w/o proper equipment
 
The only thing that a home done alignment is good for, is getting to a real shop to have the job done after major front end resto/lift. There is no way you'd ever get close enough for a DD without the right equipment IMHO.

After cranking the T-Bars on my Dmax to level the truck out, a GOOD shop in Scottsdale only charged me $65 to align, and the toe was way out.

Unless this is an off-road only truck, I'd take it to a professional shop.
 
Oilbrnr said:
The only thing that a home done alignment is good for, is getting to a real shop to have the job done after major front end resto/lift. There is no way you'd ever get close enough for a DD without the right equipment IMHO.

After cranking the T-Bars on my Dmax to level the truck out, a GOOD shop in Scottsdale only charged me $65 to align, and the toe was way out.

Unless this is an off-road only truck, I'd take it to a professional shop.
Click to expand...

Are you talking only IFS? I agree then.
But from what i've heard, accurately setting toe in on a solid front axle isn't that hard.
 
For you '73-'91 solid axle guys, you would be insane to take it to an alignment shop. The only real alignment adjustment that you can make is to front toe, which you can set by measuring from the inside of the wheels. From there, the only thing affecting the steering wheel is the link from the steering box to the steering arm on the drivers side knuckle. Only use that to slightly adjust your steering wheel though, your steering box needs to be very close to it's center of travel when the wheels are pointed strait.
 
I've did alignment on both jeep when I had them. Cherokee had about 7" lift and 35's and I got more than 50k out of a set of BFG AT on them and were still in decent shape when I sold it.

I've done about 20k miles since I got the blazer and they're doing fine as well.
 
I always align the SFA myself with just a tape measure. Faster than just the waiting time at a shop. It would be crazy to pay money for this. Plus, you can fine-tune as you see fit instead of getting their "within tolerance" report and being all done.

I have even been aligining my sedan now, even though caster, camber and toe are independant on all four wheels. Sure a 4-strut system is harder, but I've found that I get it as close with tubes and a tape measure as they do on the rack. In fact, I've had horrible results with some of those shops. You have to find the right guy.
 
Like alot of guys have said, you can do the solid front axles easily yourself. to straighten the steering wheel on your truck you will want to turn it all the way to one side and count the turns till it locks the other way. Turn back half of those and the wheels should be pretty much straight. straighten the wheels then note which way the wheel is off. loosen the clamps on your drag link and shorten or lenghten it and watch the way the wheel turns. after you get the wheel straight tighten it back down.



Blue85 said:
I always align the SFA myself with just a tape measure. Faster than just the waiting time at a shop. It would be crazy to pay money for this. Plus, you can fine-tune as you see fit instead of getting their "within tolerance" report and being all done.

I have even been aligining my sedan now, even though caster, camber and toe are independant on all four wheels. Sure a 4-strut system is harder, but I've found that I get it as close with tubes and a tape measure as they do on the rack. In fact, I've had horrible results with some of those shops. You have to find the right guy.
Click to expand...


I would have to argue the last statement due to the fact that when aligning a vehicle you are taking measurements in the 100ths of a degree and you have to compensate for wheel run out and thrust angle... I really doubt you are doing this on 4 slip plates as well... that will also throw it off. also I would love to know how you measure your caster angle.

Moral of the story: Do your own solid axle alignments... everything else take to a shop that is qualified to perform the job right... probably not a firestone, NTB, ect...

Reason I can say all this: I own an alignment machine and do 20 or so alignments a week...

gabe
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest Posts

Top Bottom