How many of you do your own alignment at home?

[shojuan]

I'm wondering how many of you check and adjust your own alignment at home. I've been reading about a couple of methods online and since I've got more time than money I'm thinking about giving it a shot after I do my bushings, tie rods, and front control arms. Plus it would be nice to know if my rear camber and toe are within acceptable limits with stock arms WITHOUT having to spend the money at a shop.

Any particular methods that work well for you guys? I'm thinking of making some plates like these and also buying this book here.

I'm curious about how close your home alignment measurements come to professional shop measurements and also if you're able to get a good side to side balance.

 

[PAracer]

I do my own 4 wheel allignment at home and get repeatable results. You need a level surface to work on. Do not assume that your garage is. You can use tiles to shim your tires to make the car sit flat. Toe plates work well for setting front and rear toe. Instead of checking side to side measurements, find the centerline of the frame of the car and stretch a string on the centerline. I set camber with a tool that I made that sits on the slicer wheel. It is basically a T-shaped steel tube that sits flat on the wheel. You then lay a digital angle finder on the tool to get the angle of camber within a tenth of a degree.

I'm sure that a allignment specialist can get more perfect results than I, but in real world conditions, roads are never flat. The slightest big of curve or crown will effect your settings.

I'll send you a picture of the allignment tool in an e-mail.

 

[noSHO]

shojuan:
I'm wondering how many of you check and adjust your own alignment at home.

My belt buckle was out of alignment for ORI today... shrug It was my first time, though, so it's alright.


I just bash my rims with a sand wedge and that usually takes care of any excess negative camber.

 

[Bizzy]

PAracer can you email me that pic of the tool you made too. I like shojuan have more time on my hands than money. I've always thought that it would be so nice if I could do my own alignment, and I'm doing tie rod ends, and rear camber/toe adjusters on my car very soon.

 

[Shoaz]

Just to take this a little further, I'm interested in what sort of alignment specs people are using for road course track cars.

Also, if PARacer could post the pic of the camber tool it would be appreciated.

Thanx.