Alignment Question

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RichardJ916

RichardJ916

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Location
Howell Michigan
Yesterday I had a New Pitman Arm, Center Line, and Idler Arm replace due to a problem with slop in the pitman arm and center line. The place I took to have the work done was a good place for front end alignment on newer car but and I am not sure how much the tech has in doing older cars like my 1972 Plymouth Duster. Here's my question...The steering is 100% better now meaning no slop in the searing wheel but after I was reading the specs sheet on front end alignment report it seems like it is still out of spec as compared to the Mopar Specs. Could someone tell me if this is going to be ok or should I take it to another shop to have the front end looked at again. Am I going to be getting tire ware with this setting or other trouble.
I am sure in the near future other parts are going to be needing replacement but just looking for a answer to the specs from the print out machine.

Here are the specs.

Left Front Right Front
Camber .6Deg. Camber -1.2Deg.
Caster 3.1Deg. Caster 2.5Deg.
Toe .11Deg. Toe .13Deg.

Total Toe .24Deg
Steer Ahead -.01Deg.

Please let me know what it looks like to you.
 
Looks like they don't know what the hell they're doing to me!

Positive camber on the left, negative camber on the right, .24 degrees of total toe. Ouch. Too much toe, camber is totally screwed up. The toe isn't horrible enough that it'll scrub the tires off but it's too much. And, there's absolutely no reason why the camber should be positive on one side and negative on the other. That just tells me they have NO idea what they're doing.

I mean, I would understand if they set it to the factory specs, which are wrong for use radial tires. It's not good, but I would get it because that's what the computer would say. But they didn't even do that.

You need to find another alignment shop. For radials you should be using this chart for alignment specs. You can run more positive caster than called for here if you can get it, I'd add 1 degree to their recommendations for the granny and street settings. More for autoX but you'd need something other than stock UCA's to get more than that.
alignment-specifications-jpg-221767-jpg.jpg
 
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72bluNblu said:
Looks like they don't know what the hell they're doing to me!

Positive camber on the left, negative camber on the right, .24 degrees of total toe. Ouch. Too much toe, camber is totally screwed up. The toe isn't horrible enough that it'll scrub the tires off but it's too much. And, there's absolutely no reason why the camber should be positive on one side and negative on the other. That just tells me they have NO idea what they're doing.

I mean, I would understand if they set it to the factory specs, which are wrong for use radial tires. It's not good, but I would get it because that's what the computer would say. But they didn't even do that.

You need to find another alignment shop. For radials you should be using this chart for alignment specs. You can run more positive caster than called for here if you can get it, I'd add 1 degree to their recommendations for the granny and street settings. More for autoX but you'd need something other than stock UCA's to get more than that.
View attachment 1715046435
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That's kind of my feeling on the total report, wasn't even close to the specs sheet. I didn't mind them doing the labor work on the parts provided to them from me but to trust them into doing the Alignment I wasn't sure on how close it would turn out.
 
Well since your from Michigan might as well take trip to Holt and hit up Holt auto alignment. Very old school guys working there still uses old school alignment machine. They definitely know their stuff and very friendly. Did my car and drives like a champ and did some free work too.
 
I do have tubular upper control arms installed on this car all ready so if I can get this to a better number I am all for it.
 
unknownsnake said:
Well since your from Michigan might as well take trip to Holt and hit up Holt auto alignment. Very old school guys working there still uses old school alignment machine. They definitely know their stuff and very friendly. Did my car and drives like a champ and did some free work too.
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Where in Holt are they, I also heard that Kovacs in Brighton, MI is also an old school places I guess I forgot about then before taking it to the place I did here inHowell
 
There's on cedar street near the old fire station or new farmers market. Between Holt and aurelius.
 
I don't know much about alignments my self hopefully someone else can chime in and answer that
 
What others parts need to be replace to get it within spec's...
Upper - Lower Ball Joints....
Tie rods ends....
I would like to get it rolling right
I have tubular upper control arms already.
Please let me know
 
On any old car, not just yours, we have customers replace a couple of parts and bring it in for an alignment. That is good sense. However many times , we find other parts that need to be replaced-not that we want to make more $ on the customer-we just want it to be correct like you. and here is my point-"You can't align looseness" .If you think it may need other parts in the near future, just save yourself the alignment $ now and do it right. A good alignment shop will inspect the front end first and won't do it until it is actually "alignable"-whether it's you or them to get it to that point. On a-bodies, ones that have factory upper control arm bushings(not offset Moog ,etc) there is a limitation in adjustments. Sometimes the cam bolt freezes to the sleeve on the bushing also so you can only adjust the camber or caster a little. There are, also now,a whole new breed of "techs" out there who don't want to spend the time to get our cars right and on the flip side there are the companies that will only pay their guys for a set amount of time on each car,"so there's that chestnut" as Dr Evil used to say...............
 
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The factory specs are for bias ply tires and the chart above is for modern radials.
 
Are the roads in your area heavy crowned ? It looks like they set it up for road crown so it tracks straight and won't pull to the curbs side of the road. Total toe(.24) almost 1/4'' is a bit more than I like.1/8-3/16"max for me.Just a thought.
 
RichardJ916 said:
Am I safe to drive it with the specs I posted here.
Click to expand...

I'd say it's safe to drive. The toe is excessive but it's not so bad that it'll ruin your tires after a short drive. The camber is totally wonky but again it's not a big tire wearing problem. The caster isn't bad. I wouldn't want to drive it a lot because the handling will be strange at best, but to the alignment shop should be ok.

RichardJ916 said:
What others parts need to be replace to get it within spec's...
Upper - Lower Ball Joints....
Tie rods ends....
I would like to get it rolling right
I have tubular upper control arms already.
Please let me know
Click to expand...

Yeah I would replace the ball joints and tie rod ends for sure. Have you done the LCA bushings at all? Those can cause alignment issues (among other things) if they're worn out.

Darter6 said:
Are the roads in your area heavy crowned ? It looks like they set it up for road crown so it tracks straight and won't pull to the curbs side of the road. Total toe(.24) almost 1/4'' is a bit more than I like.1/8-3/16"max for me.Just a thought.
Click to expand...

The caster is backward though. The way the caster is set right now it will pull to the right, not the left. And then the camber is set the other way, with that camber the car will pull hard left. So the camber and caster specs are opposite in their directions of pull. And the camber settings are nuts. That big of a swing is crazy.

Usually caster is what's set for the crown because it doesn't cause tire wear, and a few tenth's is usually all you need, no more than half a degree for sure. For a heavy crown you might throw a few tenths at the camber too, but only if that's what the customer wants because at that point the car would pull left on any flat roads.

The settings on that car just scream incompetence. Maybe if the rest of the suspension is worn out that was the best they could do. But if that's true, they should have told the OP the suspension was worn out and the alignment wasn't good, not to mention what to replace to fix it.
 
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OL DODGE said:
On any old car, not just yours, we have customers replace a couple of parts and bring it in for an alignment. That is good sense. However many times , we find other parts that need to be replaced-not that we want to make more $ on the customer-we just want it to be correct like you. and here is my point-"You can't align looseness" .If you think it may need other parts in the near future, just save yourself the alignment $ now and do it right. A good alignment shop will inspect the front end first and won't do it until it is actually "alignable"-whether it's you or them to get it to that point. On a-bodies, ones that have factory upper control arm bushings(not offset Moog ,etc) there is a limitation in adjustments. Sometimes the cam bolt freezes to the sleeve on the bushing also so you can only adjust the camber or caster a little. There are, also now,a whole new breed of "techs" out there who don't want to spend the time to get our cars right and on the flip side there are the companies that will only pay their guys for a set amount of time on each car,"so there's that chestnut" as Dr Evil used to say...............
Click to expand...
I truly understand what you are saying, after talking to another Mopar buddy this morning he, you and I are agreeing that we should replace upper and lower and also bushing in the UCA, its not that much to make sure it will stay going true to the road.

Thanks for being so kind and supportive in your answer.
 
Darter6 said:
Are the roads in your area heavy crowned ? It looks like they set it up for road crown so it tracks straight and won't pull to the curbs side of the road. Total toe(.24) almost 1/4'' is a bit more than I like.1/8-3/16"max for me.Just a thought.
Click to expand...
I understand, road are kinda crowned here but I am going to replace ball joints and get it done right the first time.
Thanks for all your help
 
72bluNblu said:
I'd say it's safe to drive. The toe is excessive but it's not so bad that it'll ruin your tires after a short drive. The camber is totally wonky but again it's not a big tire wearing problem. The caster isn't bad. I wouldn't want to drive it a lot because the handling will be strange at best, but to the alignment shop should be ok.



Yeah I would replace the ball joints and tie rod ends for sure. Have you done the LCA bushings at all? Those can cause alignment issues (among other things) if they're worn out.



The caster is backward though. The way the caster is set right now it will pull to the right, not the left. And then the camber is set the other way, with that camber the car will pull hard left. So the camber and caster specs are opposite in their directions of pull. And the camber settings are nuts. That big of a swing is crazy.

Usually caster is what's set for the crown because it doesn't cause tire wear, and a few tenth's is usually all you need, no more than half a degree for sure. For a heavy crown you might throw a few tenths at the camber too, but only if that's what the customer wants because at that point the car would pull left on any flat roads.

The settings on that car just scream incompetence. Maybe if the rest of the suspension is worn out that was the best they could do. But if that's true, they should have told the OP the suspension was worn out and the alignment wasn't good, not to mention what to replace to fix it.
Click to expand...

I am going to replace both tie rod ends, upper and lower ball joins. I have Tubular upper control arm bushing that I will replace also. I didn't see in the Moggs book about LCA bushings but will revisit it and order them also. I have had the car for like 7 years now and its about time I go through the whole front end and be done with it once and for all
 
RichardJ916 said:
I am going to replace both tie rod ends, upper and lower ball joins. I have Tubular upper control arm bushing that I will replace also. I didn't see in the Moggs book about LCA bushings but will revisit it and order them also. I have had the car for like 7 years now and its about time I go through the whole front end and be done with it once and for all
Click to expand...

How old are the tubular UCA's? If the car doesn't have a ton of miles since they were installed I would suspect that the upper ball joints and UCA bushings are probably ok. I mean, it's worth checking but those parts should last a long time. Of course if you don't know the history on them it may be worth the piece of mind to you to replace them anyway.
 
72bluNblu said:
How old are the tubular UCA's? If the car doesn't have a ton of miles since they were installed I would suspect that the upper ball joints and UCA bushings are probably ok. I mean, it's worth checking but those parts should last a long time. Of course if you don't know the history on them it may be worth the piece of mind to you to replace them anyway.
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I just talked to the guy that I got the car from and he said he just replaced both upper and lower when he switched over to the larger bolt pattern disk brakes, so it should have new ones already. The only thing he is not sure about is the manufacturing company he got the part from, meaning if we had to replace the ball joint with a standard larger Mogg ball joint will fit it like the normal one that screws in. hope that made sense.
 
He only put on like 500 miles before he sold it to me, I have had the car 7 years and I think I only drive about 1000 miles per year, I cant see how the ball joint could go bad that quick. Like I've said before, we only replace the center link due to another troubles. The car drove fine before that, never no tire ware, drove straight, and no wondering, just slop in the steering wheel due to the center link pitman arm trouble. So I cant see how it went that far off.
 
With that kind of mileage I wouldn't worry about the ball joints, they should be fine. A quick check wouldn't hurt anything just to be sure, but unless they were faulty they shouldn't be worn out. Since the pitman and idler got skipped when the ball joints were done though I would definitely check to make sure the LCA bushings were done, they get overlooked a lot and they can cause alignment issues, among other things. But it sounds to me like the alignment shop doesn't know what they're doing more than anything else.

Have you changed the ride height with the torsion bar adjusters? That's about the only other thing that will throw the alignment out besides bending something or the bushings going out. And even then it should be the same-ish side to side unless the car isn't sitting level or wasn't before.
 
72bluNblu said:
With that kind of mileage I wouldn't worry about the ball joints, they should be fine. A quick check wouldn't hurt anything just to be sure, but unless they were faulty they shouldn't be worn out. Since the pitman and idler got skipped when the ball joints were done though I would definitely check to make sure the LCA bushings were done, they get overlooked a lot and they can cause alignment issues, among other things. But it sounds to me like the alignment shop doesn't know what they're doing more than anything else.

Have you changed the ride height with the torsion bar adjusters? That's about the only other thing that will throw the alignment out besides bending something or the bushings going out. And even then it should be the same-ish side to side unless the car isn't sitting level or wasn't before.
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I have not changed nothing, except for parts talk about above.

I will be bring the car over to a Mopar guy next Wednesday to check all the ball joints and bushing, after and only then will I replace parts, if all parts check out fine I will be bring the car to a different place to have front end alignment done
 
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