How many of you do DIY alignments?

[friendly_jacek]

I checked and rechecked toe settings in 3 cars last evening and it's very easy to do and gave precise and repeatable results. All you need is string, jack stands and tape measure.

There are many youtube tutorials. This is a good write-up I found useful: http://www.negative-camber.org/jam149/technical/alignment.html

Here is an online calculator you can use to convert measurements to degrees: http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/math/Arctan_Calculator.htm

I'm kicking myself for not learning that a long time ago. That would have saved me a lot of money in tires and worthless "alignment jobs."

 

[eljefino]

I do my own and yup it's easy. I'm forced to since my aftermarket struts are "camber kitted" through elongated holes whether or not I want them to be.

 

[tstep]

Very interesting, thanks. I never had given it a thought before reading this. Seems easy enough.

 

[friendly_jacek]

The only mistake I did, I didn't put weight in the car to load it properly.

This is how it should be done:

 

[eljefino]

^ Those harbor freight jack stands will kill ya!

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
^ Those harbor freight jack stands will kill ya!

Only if the shear pins break!!

 

[Donald]

I only have time for so much, and that is not on my list.

One thing most shops do as part of an alignment is to check all the suspension parts. Which I think is a real benefit, given I have no lift.

 

[eljefino]

It gets old if one does, say, a clutch on a FWD car that takes apart a whole corner of the car... steering knuckle, strut, out... ball joints and tie rod ends hanging helter skelter.

The satisfaction of finishing the clutch job is marred by going to a 3rd party for an alignment.

I started by "getting it close enough to bring in" then went on to "jeez, this drives pretty well and my tires are doing fine."

Preserving an existing alignment is another tangent, if one has very precise methods of measuring. Or, for a long shot, they can spray paint the "shadow" of their struts to knuckles, tie rod adjusting sleeves, etc.

 

[Warstud]

That's a cool little car. What is it?

 

[bdcardinal]

I done my own alignment the last few times, of course it was on Hunter racks at my work.

 

[CapriRacer]

A word of caution:

The tracks (the distance between the wheels on a given axle) is different front to rear. You need to compensate for that when you measure the toe.

The easy way to do that is to make the strings parallel, THEN measure.

- AND - IMHO, toe needs to be within 1/32nd of an inch of the target value for each side. That's a pretty small measurement, so careful set up is needed to make sure you get this right.

 

[friendly_jacek]

I didn't realize there was a parallel thread running on this topic already: https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/diy-wheel-alignment.202246/