Front end alignment

[Lip Ripper]

Hey gang, I thought I'd share my thoughts. On my 61 I did the Shelby drop, roller spring perches, fully adjustable strut rods, a fat sway bar and Granada disc brakes. Daze Cars recommended 3 degrees caster on the right and a little less on the left. I did that base line and adjusted the left strut rod until the car tracked straight with the 3 degrees positive on the right. The car drove straight but was a bear to turn at parking lot speed and darn hard parked. I didn't like it. I said forget the specs. I first did one full turn on each strut rod to reduce caster. I did it again, and I can't remember if I ended up with two full turns or 2 1/2, but I'd take it around the block after each adjustment. I was happy. Yesterday I reset the toe, it had moved to 1/2" toe out. I adjusted that to 1/16" toe-in last night. Today I took it to the office. When I came home I drove right past my road and took a drive through the country. This car is driving really nice now, I'll leave it alone.

On to the next Manx.

[poboyjo65]

manual steering cars dont need as much caster. PS cars need more + caster to have good return to center & less bump steer. dazecars & opentracker recommends 2.0 - 3.5 + caster for manual steering, (2.5 - 4.5 for PS cars) . I'd bet with only 2 turns of both strutrods you are still above 2.0+ caster for your manual steering car.

But I would want to check & see what specs you have now to be sure that they are within a 1/4 of a degree of each other, for a couple reasons. it can be driving good & still wearing the tires prematurely ,& also I'd want to know the current specs for future reference & future alignments.

when I did mine I went thru the process 2 or 3 times. each movement affects the others. so I kept fine tuning it until I had where I wanted. the tricky part for me was setting the toe equal amounts on each side to keep the steering wheel straight. Young bozos at alignment shops today might say to take the steering wheel off & move it but that would take the sector box off its' center which is not designed to do & may limit turning radius in one direction.

[Lip Ripper]

I did maintain the center of the wheel by the same effort, equal turns on each side of the tie-rod couplers. And I could be wrong, but I don't think caster causes tire wear. I drove it again this afternoon and it is just nice.

[Jims65cyclone]

Back when I was doing alignments (when the earth was still cooling, according to my daughter) we would set the caster on the passenger side 1/4* less than the driver's side to compensate for the crown of road. Caster had little or no affect on tire wear, but camber could if significantly out of spec. By far, toe-in/out is the biggest factor in tire wear. Too much toe-in wears the outside treads. Too much toe-out wears the inside. We always set rear wheel drive cars at 1/16 toe-in, and the occasional (back then) front wheel drive cars at 1/16th toe-out.

Jim

[lavron]

Has anyone used one of these camber castor gauges?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EP ... FVNCSBAHIR

Thought I might have a go at doing my own alignment instead of paying someone to do it

Any other suggestions as well I am not going to spend several hundred dollars on equipment however but would spend a little just to do it myself and for the experience.

See Ya,
Mike

[lavron]

Also, and I don't mean to hijack the thread because it was originally about the Shelby drop, but I just grabbed these specs from the H.A.M.B. for the M2;

Don't bother with the stock Mustang II specs.

Go for as close to 0º on you camber and about +2º on your caster, then set the toe in to 1/16" to 1/8" positive.

If it tracks and drives right, you are good to go.

See Ya,
Mike

[SASSY]

Those numbers sound fine. Camber is easy enough with an angle finder on the rim but caster,,, dont have a no money answer for that one,,, anybody?
Fred

[lavron]

It appears there might be phone apps to do this. Will look into that as well might be something good enough to do what I need.

See Ya,
Mike

[tomb22]

I wouldn't order that particular tool. You need one that attaches to the center hub so that you can turn the wheels while its on the ground to check caster. I did come up with one that works good. Got it from Speedway

Check this out

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Speedway ... aUQAvD_BwE


tom

[lavron]

I did come up with one that works good. Got it from Speedway

That was the other one I was considering Tom, I might get it instead and save my $15 for the other one. I can probably afford $45

See Ya,
Mike

[Jims65cyclone]

The Speedway unit that Tom recommended works exactly like the BeeLine equipment I used to use, and that was very accurate. It's worth the $30 extra not to have to try to interpret the instructions that come with the Amazon unit.

Jim