I had my car aligned on Saturday morning at a shop that came highly recommended by basically the only major older vette shop here in S. Florida. They used an old school technique that I have never seen before to do my 4 wheel alignment. They used a "balancer/leveler" system vs. the newer Laser system. Just curious if anybody else had any experience with this method and could comment. I must say...the car is very very straight riding perfectly smooth now and straight at 100mph. They said that while the laser system is nice it does not do as good as job as the leveler system and that the laser system can easily produce incorrect readings making you think that it is aligned correctly. While I was there....4 other vettes showed up (all new C5 & C6's) getting new tires and also one new C5 waiting for an alignment and the guy driving the C5 races his vette monthly at Moroso and Sebring he tells me and says that nothing is better than the old leveler system. It was a classic old shop that you might think initially driving by it is just another junky old shop but the guys were really cool and very well intuned with everything going on.

 

Sometimes the old ways are the best,
i have a set of Dunlop optical gauges at home,
like the ones you mentioned and they have paid for themselves many times over.

 

I have to agree that sometimes the old ways are best. BUT temper that with the knowledge that it's not just the machne they use for alignment, it's the experience of the guys using it. I've seen really bad alignments come off the old school machines too. In fact, you could have done better with a carpenters' level and a tape measure.

I'll be willing to bet that if the guy using a laser machine is good, cares as much, and gets it all calibrated correctly, his alignment would be as good as the old school guys.

The real secret to ANY service work, be it alignment or an oil change, is finding someone that not only enjoys what he does, but has the drive and desire to be the best.

Just my $.02

 

I did brake and front end for years; using many different types of alignment equipment. My primer was written by the founder (if I remember) of Hunter Engineering, it was called "Alignment=Motion Balance" or something very similar.

While I am not familar with the equipment you described, or at least the term used to describe it with, I can say one thing: Any modern, laser beam alignment machine is designed to sell alignments. Period. On an American driven passenger car designed to be driven 0-75MPH, there will never be a need to measure alignment angles down to the hundredth of a degree.

Sure - it is nice to be able to print out the sheet, showing the customer all of the angles and printed in RED will be the ones that are out of spec. You can say things like "Three out of four corners of the car are out" and sell the alignment. (I was also a service manager for ten years after I quit turning wrenches). But the bottom line is that out of all the alignment angles there are to adjust, toe is the one that gets out the most often and most cars can get by with just a toe set, whether on front, back, or both.

Back to your question about the equipment on the C3: Yea it does take a C3-trained guy to adjust the rear, but the front of these cars is just standard GM issue for the era. You don't need laser beams to set these cars; in fact if you use that setup you would have to manually input the requested settings anyway (the computer will not go back to the C3 generation in many years).

So if you were inputting the settings manually in the computer, you would be the one telling it to print RED if the camber was .001 degree out. how honest is the alignment guy and how badly do they want to sell you the alignment? Hope that makes sense ...

The only person qualified to do that is the one that knows exactly what these cars need. And looking up GM specs on a car that's not in the alignment machine's computer, is time consuming and the tech may not be interested in doing so.

For my money, a C3 can be aligned with any old equipment. As long as the tech knows what to set the toe and camber to. And caster as well, if the front end has been apart or if there is a 'pull to one side' problem that can be corrected with a caster adjustment.

-My 2 cents

 

By 'Leveler system' are you referring to a caster/camber bubble that gets attached to the hub?

 

I should have got more details...but what they did was having two tires (front vs. rear) on kind of a circular disk....then jacked up the car...supported it freely so that the tires were off the round disks and drawn a kind of a chalk line along/around the outside edge of the tire's tread. Then after this I really don't have too much info...I know that they had mirrors that they used for each tire against the back wall and from there made the adjustments/measurements. He took 1.5 hours for the rear and 30 min for the front. He said it was a "leveler" system that you can't buy the parts for anymore and that it was almost a lost trade. The guy was very enthusiastic about his work along with all his co-workers there. He definitely knew the vettes and while I asked him to drill a hole in the frame for my cotter pin rear slotted shims he did not want to do that and used the non-slotted shims. My car is far fron stock...but at least my car drives nice & straight now.

 

It's ALL in the person using the eqipment. You will very often find that folks don't calibrate their equipment. They are tasked with knocking out 10 alignments before they go home at 5:30.

If you want to have real fun...set car all up on machine....get readings..then take it around the block and then put it back on machine. You'll find most often you will get very different readings.

Old, but in good shape equipment in good hands, beats a person who doesn't care with out of whack equipment.


JIM

 

The old boys down at the truck spring shop did one for me on my Camaro. Spray painted a stripe on the front tires tread circumference then scribed a mark around the tread. They used those rotating plates under the tires. Looks like an old school prehistoric alignment job if you ask me but the car drives straight. Thats where I want the next one done too.

-Mark.

 

Rear Suspension
Alignment

A lot of us would rather do it ourselves than take our Corvette to an alignment shop that hasn’t seen a C2-C3 Corvette in 20 years. I have used this method for years, and it will put your car on the money.

All you need to align the rear end of your 63-82 Corvette is an hour or so, a short level, a pair of 2’ by 4 x 4 wood blocks, two 3-foot aluminum straight edges, a framing square, some string, a measuring tape and a helper.

Your car needs to be on the garage floor, with all the trailing arm shims removed from the front trailing arm bushings.

First the ride height at the rear should be set. Your car’s favorite ride height is where the half shafts are horizontal. In this position, the U-joints don’t have to work much at all, but that may be too low for you. Adjust the ride height to your favorite position by tightening or loosening the spring bolts.

Next is track. We have to have the toe-in equal on both sides so the car will track straight down the road. Position the rear wheels as close to straight as possible. This is easy even with weight on the car, as you can use the trailing arm as a big lever to pull or push the front of each wheel in or out.

Make sure the front wheels are straight. Have your helper hold one end of an 8’ string on the outside of the left rear tire behind the axle, at the height of the axle. Pull that string taught to the front of the car and move it in until the string just touches the front of the rear tire in the same position as your helper has the other end pinned at the rear.

With the taught string in your left hand, use your right hand to measure the distance between the string and the dust cover of the front spindle. If you have rally wheels, measure to the center of the cone.

All we are trying to do is get a relative measurement to which we can compare the other side. Repeat this procedure on the right side, and go back and adjust the tow by hand until both lines of alignment are equal when measured relative to the front axle reference.

At this point your Corvette is tracking straight, but we have not yet set the toe. We have set the track.

To set the toe, place the 2’ 4X4 wood blocks on the floor outside, centered and up against the rear tires. Place the 3-foot aluminum straight edge on top of one of these blocks, centered on the tire. Have your helper hold the strap tangent to the outside of the tire. In case you are wondering, the purpose of the block is to elevate the aluminum straight edge above the bulge in the tire at the floor.

Now you go to the other side and place your block and aluminum strap in the same relative position and feed the end of your tape measure under the car to your helper on the other side. Measure the distance between the aluminum straight edges in front of the tire and behind the tire, again with both aluminum straight edges sitting on the reference blocks and tangent to the outsides of the tire.

Our target is 1/8-inch total toe. That means the distance between the front of the tires should be 1/8-inch less than it is at the back of the tires. It won’t be. You will have to torque the arms in or out to achieve this number, but the trick is to do it half on one side and half on the other. When you think you are there, go back and do the string trick again to make sure you are still tracking straight down the road. Adjust accordingly and repeat until it is both tracking straight and the total tow is 1/8-inch.

When you are there, put the spacers in and tighten up the trailing arm bolts. Check it again just to make sure, and then insert the cotter pins in the trailing arm bolts and in the shim packs and you are finished with the toe adjustment.

Last we adjust the camber, which is the angle the rear tire sits to the floor. The target is ¼ to ½ degree negative camber, meaning we want the top of the tire to be tilted in just barely, like 1/8 to 3/16 inch from vertical. You adjust that with the strut rod cam bolts that are located under the differential. Loosen, twist, tighten, measure, and repeat as necessary until you get it right. You will have to roll the car between adjustments to allow the tire to move.

When you are all finished, if you are into self-abuse, you can drive the car around the block and measure the toe again. It will go much faster this time. Remember we need to have the toe-in right, but we must also have the tracking equal left and right.

 

The newest Hunter equipment doesn't use any lasers, it uses a camera system with LED strobes and reflective targets attached to each wheel. While it may not be necessary to peg your alignment down to a hundredth or thousandth of a degree, I'm a big fan of overkill.

 

Stingr69.....Sounds prehistoric....but if done correctly this is the most repeatable alignment you'll find.

Ever been to a Grand Prix race? Wander the Paddock area and you will often see *box* alignment being done. A string is setup around the car and once perfectly *squared up* all measurements are taken to the tire edges to set toe on all 4 corners. Camber and caster are set with simple gauges.

I work in the heavy truck industry, (900+ locations) I can tell you that we gave up LONG ago on alignment shops. We've developed our own system that is just a slightly fancier version of the one VictoriaVette descibes above. We used the strings for years..and they work perfectly. Now we have a laser we shoot..but it is just a high tech string at that point. It's a little faster..that's all.

I can guarantee repeatabilty and perfect driving and tire wear..IF the right person is doing it and wants to do it right. Again..it's all up to the operator.

I do my C-2 using same basic ideas..and it works fine even at 140-150 mph!

JIM

 

It's a poor workman that blames his tools. About the only thing some of the modern tools do is make the alignment (or other types of service) go faster...not necessarily better or more accurate. That's where the craftsman comes in.

Faster for a shop means quicker turnover and increased profits. Not a bad thing to be sure, but it's the service tech that makes the difference.

It's kind of like a high capacity pistol with a light trigger...in the hands of an expert a wonder to watch in action. In the hands of an amateur, just a tool that lets a guy miss faster and more often.

 

I just purchased a 45k laser alignment rack from hunter for my shop,we had an old school hunter which worked fine it just too long to set up.We can now do a 4 wheel alignment in about 20 minutes and with the old machine it could take a couple of hours.Purchasing the new one was more about production than function,the old way works fine,just takes longer.Both do the same thing.

 

I really doubt you bought a "laser" rack from them. I'm betting you bought a WinAlign machine with the DSP 600 camera/LED strobe sensors.

 

You are exactly right,but for the sake of the thread and not having to explain all that I just stuck with laymens terms.

 

I used to work there...some of my program work is probably still in the newer machines. My "goldfish bowl" cube was right next to the electronics prototyping department...it was always fun to turn around and catch a full blast from a prototype of those LED emitters square in the eyes.

I probably had the world's record for the greatest number of alignment machines per square foot...counting my desktop computer (which had WinAlign installed), there were four in about 60 square feet or less.

 

The "old school" method may look like stone knives and bear skins in this day of high technology, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with levels, balancers, scales, gauges, strings, rulers and trammel bars, as long as their in the right hands. And, that's exactly the kind of alignment tools you'll see relied on at the track.

 

This is one of those things on my "list".

I want to learn how to do an alignment at home with cave man tools. Even if it was just a front end alignment I would be satisfied.

-Mark.