As I near the end of my disk brake and suspension project, I'm going to need to align the car, at least to a 90% solution so that I can drive it to a shop properly equipped to dial it in perfectly. I just want to make sure I have a handle on all of the adjustments.

For the rear, I'm using Global West adjustable camber rods...rod gets longer, camber goes negative, rod gets shorter, camber goes positive. As for the rear toe, I understand that you set that by shimming the control arms and there they're looking for approximately 1/16" toe in on both sides. I assume the more shims you have on the outboard side of the trailing arm, the more toe in you have, and the more shims you have on the inboard side of the trailing arm, the more toe out you'll have.

In the front, I'm assuming you add shims to the upper control arm to go negative on the camber and remove shims to go positive on the camber? For the toe in the front, you just shorten or lengthen the steering rods. The aspect I don't have a particularly good handle on is setting the caster in the front. I've read that with manual rack and pinion steering, I should be looking for around 2.5 to 3 degrees positive. but I'm unsure of how exactly you change that value....I'm assuming you go positive on the caster by either adding shims to the rear bolt on the upper A arm or removing them from the front.

Any input on the subject would be greatly appreciated. I have a bubble type camber/caster gage as well as a set of toe plates. I plan on using the linoleum tile and grease sandwich method as a poor mans turn plates.

 

Hope this helps

 

For better or worse, how I've set up the rear is described in post 40 of this thread.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...ignment-2.html

Another one I chimed in on - not that I'm an expert on this stuff.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...aligement.html

There are others if you do a search.

 

FLYNAVY30,
I'm no expert, but years ago I came to this forum for advice for my car that drifted slightly following a professional alignment. We concluded it would benefit from more caster. I wanted to do that without having to have it aligned again. So on the advice of SWCDuke, I removed one shim from the front of the A-arm and added to the back. That increased the caster and solved my problem. ... I realize that moving shims around can affect more than just caster, but when everything else is close, a small change like the one I did seemed to work.

 

 

If you download this pdf on Corvette Handling by Herb Adams and look at the 50th page (page 52 in the actual book) it gives a simple procedure the get alignment into the ballpark with simple tools.

Once the basic alignments are close on level ground, take the car to an alignment rack to verify your settings and make fine adjustments.

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate the input. I'm under no delusions that I'm going to get this thing perfectly dialed in by myself, in the garage. I'm just looking to get it close just so that its drivable to a good alignment shop that has experience with mid-years, and for my own personal education. I hate paying people to do work that I can figure out myself, but in this case, alignment tables and lasers are going to result in a far better product than I will ever achieve, but I still enjoy learning the process and understanding the mechanics behind what the adjustments are.

 

Good stuff, thanks! I'll ad this to my "waiting on bad weather/broken aircraft" reading list at work.

 

I would recommend using strings over toe plates so you have a box to work with when measuring toe. You can end up crabbing using toe plates alone. Another thing to keep in mind, professional race teams still use strings, not lasers, for their alignments. While I do not yet own a Corvette, I use strings and hubstands to do the alignment on all of my vehicles including my race car where a precision alignment is absolutely critical.

If you only need to get it to an alignment shop I wouldn't worry too much. Just make sure the rear isn't toe out and you should be fine.