Alignment question

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unknownsnake

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So I took car to get alignment and the guy was trying to say he couldn't do it since I put big block in tried to sell me ajustable upper control arms and few other things. He also tried to say my car shakes at 60-65 because of this. I never took alignment and suspension when I went to school so I personally never heard of that?? Any truth to this?
 
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Lots of factors come into play. Upper control arms, aftermarket adjustable ones, are needed to obtain positive caster. With radial tires you want positive caster for stability. Back in the day these cars were designed for negative caster to make the steering wheels easier to turn, especially for manual steering vehicles.

Some people will say that offset bushings will work in place of adjustable upper control arms, but that won't get you much positive caster at all. I use them and I wish I went with tubular UCAs instead.

I won't go into more factors but if you're still using old wimpy torsion bars that's another factor right there. If your front end is "hinging" up and down on minor bumps that will throw your alignment off and cause issues.

I will say that is very hard to find good alignment people these days. People aren't trustworthy anymore, and most alignment shops do a poor job at best. I just had an issue dealing with an alignment shop last week.
 
I went threw everything on the front end all new ball joints, pitman arm, the other arm can't remember name, all engery suspension bushings in the front. It had big block bars in already. He said it wasn't far off just don't understand where shaking is coming from. It has new tires that balanced out. Only have 500 miles on tires as of now
 
You could get the moog offset upper arm bushings for now or until you work the bugs out.
 
I ordered some spc adjustable control ones but they been on back order all year, just don't think that will fix vibration
 
The vibration is probably just tire balance, the alignment shouldn't cause a vibration at all. The other possibility is that something in the suspension is loose or broken, like the lower control arm pivot tubes coming loose from the K frame. Or worn out tie rod ends, ball joints etc but it sounds like you took care of most of those.

As far as the alignment goes, the big block shouldn't have anything at all to do with that. Won't make a difference. The ride height does, but that's adjustable with the torsion bar adjusters. The ride height can make a big difference, the suspension geometry changes as the car is raised or lowered with the torsion bar adjusters. At most typical ride heights the offset UCA bushings can be used to get around +3* of caster. That's not a ton, but it's more than enough for a smooth, relatively stable ride. Tubular UCA's are nice as they have more caster built in, usually +5* of caster can be achieved with most of the tubular UCA's out there. You can get a lot more than that with the SPC's, but unless you have power steering you probably don't want a lot more than that anyway.

Really though, it sounds to me like your alignment guy doesn't know what he's talking about. The big block swap has nothing to do with the alignment other than possibly needing to adjust the ride height. But like I said, that's adjustable so he should be able to fix that if it's a problem, and if he knows anything about Mopars. Did he tell you what the actual alignment numbers were? Or what he was trying to adjust them to? The factory specs are for bias ply's, and shouldn't be used for radial tires at all. These are all reasons I bought my own alignment equipment and set my alignments myself now.
 
I rebuilt my front end. It was perfect when I was done. I took it to a shop to get it aligned. The counter guy told me it was too far out of spec to align. I said okay, but he tried to charge me a rack fee. After much arguing with him and his "tech" it was confirmed that his computer couldn't tell his "tech" how many shims to add and subtract. (go figure)
I took it somewhere else and the alignment was done without issue.
 
I rebuilt my front end. It was perfect when I was done. I took it to a shop to get it aligned. The counter guy told me it was too far out of spec to align. I said okay, but he tried to charge me a rack fee. After much arguing with him and his "tech" it was confirmed that his computer couldn't tell his "tech" how many shims to add and subtract. (go figure)
I took it somewhere else and the alignment was done without issue.
I just went thru this last week. the guy does mostly front end work on anything. 4 wheel drives, corvettes, hot rods etc. works for himself, and has a backlog of 2-4 weeks usually. he worked on my magnum force front end, for 4 solid hrs. to get it right. asked him what he thot about it, and to be truthful, he said it looked ok to him and didn`t see any problems w/ it.
 
I went through the alignment thing last week. Small shop in a small town, he let me enter the specs that I wanted into the computer but we worked for 5 hours and still didn't get the car exactly where we wanted it. The only thing we could figure out was the new laser machine flat out didn't work on the car and should've had older equipment
 
I went through the alignment thing last week. Small shop in a small town, he let me enter the specs that I wanted into the computer but we worked for 5 hours and still didn't get the car exactly where we wanted it. The only thing we could figure out was the new laser machine flat out didn't work on the car and should've had older equipment
my guy had the neatest toe in set up I`ve ever seen. course I ain`t around that stuff much. it worked off of laser lights on the rear wheels.
 
Alignment issues do not cause shaking. He's an idiot. Find another alignment shop.
 
4 or 5 hours for an alignment?!

It shouldn't take more than an hour, especially on a rack. Even with my home set up I can do the whole thing in an hour or so, and that includes double checking my set up a couple times because I have to move my caster/camber gauge from one wheel to the other.

The only exception I would say to that is if you actually have adjustable UCA's and are setting them up the first time. The much larger range of adjustment and multiple adjustment locations (the arms and the camber bolts) mean it can take a lot longer. But if the ride height is set and you're just using the camber bolts you should be able to go through the whole range of adjustments in an hour or so. Especially if you work at an alignment shop, and especially if it's on a modern alignment rack!
 
alignment hacks. I do my own
Exactly. Now the computer racks just tell them how many shims to add. Most of them have no clue how suspension is actually supposed to work, they just add shims 'til the numbers on the computer turn green. Camber bolts are way easier, but that's not what they're used to seeing so they don't know what to do. And forget trying to explain to them the adjustable ride height thing and how it changes the geometry.

Between that and the computer being loaded with factory specs for bias plys your chances of getting a good alignment at a major name shop are just about zilch. There's probably a few guys out there that actually know what they're doing, but finding them is no small feat anymore.
 
You should best be looking for a shop that does some track racing themselves or has clients with circuit racers.
They know what's needed for a car to handle.
The average "Jack's Garage" with an alignment rack usually knows pretty much nothing other than what the computer tells him.
 
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