easy front-end alignment

Dino, get in your car and turn the steering wheel all the way to the right. Now turn it all the way to the left. However many turns it took to go from side to side divide by two. Turn that wheel back that amount and hopefully you steering wheel is lined up. Top spoke at 12 o’clock, right spoke at 3 o’clock, bottom spoke at 6 o’clock, and left at 9. That is the neutral position in your steering gear box, and your tires should be pointed close to straight ahead.

I should have mentioned this when I talked about alignment because it’s the number One thing you should do when aligning those front tires. If that steering wheel is ****-eyed, pull it and position it correctly. It’s hard to tell if your wheels are actually aligned if that steering wheel isn’t straight up and down.

I hope this helped,

Mike
 
Dino's A said:
How do you get the wheels perfectly steered straight to even begin doing this test with accuracy? Or does it matter that you are pointing the car dead on straight?
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Pick a reference point at the end of your shop/hard surfaced pad and drive straight toward it. When satisfied that the car is moving in a straight line, stop and check your toe in.
 
I use two common pins (one in the tread of each front tire) and a metal measuring tape. Insert pins 6 inches from the floor on the back side, then roll the car forward until the pins are 6 inches off the ground in the front. Difference in the two measurements is the toe. I posted this method several years ago on the barn.
 
This is the one that I made to use with the pin method. Since then I shortened the pointers so it could measure six inches off the floor.
 

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A good thing about the string method is it will tell you ifn the rear axle is centred or off to one side.
 
Brentwood Bob said:
Spell check is not my friend. I'm home originally started as imho.
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Russ Cochiolo, who posts here, now has YOURS/MINE, ZIP-A-RAK, on Blue Lu Lu, his Roadster. He stole it off of Vermin, after I sold him to Chuck Kallas. Then Chuck traded him off for a Sedan Delivery!!
What a twisted WEB, Folks WEAVE--LOL
Bro Bill W.
 
katy said:
A good thing about the string method is it will tell you ifn the rear axle is centred or off to one side.
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The string is better than a LOOOOONG "straight" 2 X 4---
Let's face it, when we're dealing with ONLY 1/16", we could probably change it, by BLOWING on the TIRE!!! Main thing is WATCH your tires for scuffing & adjust it accordingly!--IT'S EASY!
Bill Again
 
The string method can work ok if all of your rims are true with no run out. For me, the best method is as follows; use a sharpie pen and draw a center line on each of your front tires. This can be accomplished by using a 2x4 block of wood. Measure the diameter of the sharpie pen and drill a hole of the same size through the 2" side of the 2x4. Place the pen in the hole. Jack up one side of the front end until the tire spins free. Place the upright pen against a flat surface of the tire tread. Holding the block and pen still, spin the tire slowly until you have drawn a "center line" completely around the tire. Repeat and draw a center line on the other tire. The center line will give you a true measurement to work with.


Next, measure the distance between the two tires using inside of both center lines. Use the front bumper braces to rest your measuring tape on for your front side distance measurement. For the back side of the tire measurement, use the bottom of the A bars and kiss your measuring tape up against them while measuring the distance between the centerlines. Turn the tie rod to change the distance between the two measuring points. The front measurement needs to be 1/16" less than the rear measurement plus or minus 1/32".

I know the centerline method is a little more time consuming than the string method, but, your toe in will always be dead on using the centerline method. One bent rim will kill your toe in setting using the string method.


The reason for my post is I used the string method first to set my toe in. The result was toooooo much toe in due to rims that were not true. I reset the toe in using the centerline method with dead on results. JMO
 
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