I finally got the alignment done on my car this morning. I took it to a shop recomended here by a forum member. Ceriales Automotive in Westhampton NJ 609 267 4600. . These guys did an excellent job. I did not get the technicians name but Mike the owner was great. Seems the technician learned from an older guy who used to work on a lot of Vettes and passed his knowledge onto the younger generation. I told him what I wanted and he accomadated me. I asked if I could talk to the technician because of my different setup and this was no problem. He took the time to do it right and we chatted quite a bit about cars in general and some of the bad things he has seen with Corvettes. Mine was pretty close with my string and levels but he got it right on to the specs we discussed. They use a Hoffman V3D Image alignment machine. I had never seen one like this but it was pretty trick looking. Nice clean shop also.

Anyone within driving distance to these guys I would highly recomend. He even gave me a discount for being a forum member. They are right near exit 5 on the turnpike. The car dives nice and straight now and I put it through a few good turns on the way home. Can't wait for the autoX now!

 

Front only or did he check/Do the back?

 

Full 4 wheel alignment.

I definitly needed the rear after all the work back there. Dual mount spring along with the 6 link in the rear. He had never seen anything like the 6 link before. He liked it and it is easy to adjust.

 

Sweet lookin car man you be struttin now. Clean car. any pics of the new rearend?

 

Here is the write up I did of the install with pictures

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...ghlight=6+link

 

Good to hear...Too bad they are so far south!!

 

Did you go with the VBP specs for the suspension setup or something you have used before? I was amazed at how close I got with my string setup too.

 

Gordonm....I got a quick question on the rearend alignment. I just recently went through the 6 link install and the dual mount. I had my car aligned to 0* toe and 0* camber about 2 months beforehand using the VB&P camber adjust rods and single mount spring. After doing the 6 link & dual mount I don't see a reason to have it re-aligned again....Am I missing something? I have the camber set at 0* as per the procedure from Dragvette with the 6 link using my digital angle guage and also I checked the toe again and its zero for which I think the toe should not change being that I did not take out the trailing arm shims.

Lastly....I got a question if you noticed your "lower" 6 link bar stiffening up after driving it a while? While on jack stands both my top & bottom heim joints were loose where I could move the bar by hand. Now after a few 100 miles the bottom bar has become stiff where I can't rotate it by hand. I can still rotate the top bar of the 6 link very easily. I spoke with Steve from Dragvette and he said that this is probably normal and that if I can rotate the bottom bar while the car is jacked up then everything is okay and not binding. I have not had a chance to jack up the rearend yet to see if the lower bar is still stiff when in the air. Steve's thoughts were that the pressure from the camber adjustment along with the weight of the car was creating such a force on the heim joints that it was difficult to rotate by hand when on the ground under pressure but that still all should be good. What are your thoughts....experience????

 

He has his own specs tha the has used on many C3 cars and goes by that. I wanted my own specs and they were very close to mine exept the Castor which I have offset arms so I can run more. I was pretty close on everything but the castor. The final numbers were the camber on the front and rear is right at 0. The castor is at 4.5, Iwanted 5 but my frame must be a little tweaked and the one side only has a sliver of a shim in it to get the castor and camber so I said lets leave it there. Toe is .20 both sides. The rear is .05. Tried for more but just a sliver of a shim sent it to far the other way. I just went for a 50 mile ride and it tracks very straight and true.

 

Nice feeling being able to drive it in a straight line and not worry about having to chase it all over the place. Mine will drive a nice straight line too.

 

You should be fine on the rear alignment. Mine had not been aligned in a bunch of years and I have been through many changes since then so I wanted a full alignment. I was not far off with my string and level though.

I just went out and checked my link bars. The upper one moves pretty easy and the lower one is a little stiffer but I can move it by hand. This is after the alignment and a good 50 mile drive on the new alignment. Do you still have your c clips on the inner axles. That is the only thing I can think of tha twould be binding. I removed mine but did not grind any off the stub end. When I set it up I made sure the stub was not bottomed out in the case or against the pin so I still have a little movement.

 

Ahh...I am glad to hear that I don't need an alignment done again.

I did not remove the C-clips and the side yokes were good and tight when we had everything disconnected we tried yanking on them for side to side movement and it was at most 1/8". The first 100 miles was good with the rear link being stiff and then a week later I could not rotate it by hand. The suspension feels good and the rear seems to be reacting good (no unhappy results) so I guess all is working good as I have been beating the crap out of my car with the new suspension and knowing I got new wheels/tires arriving any day now I can afford to burn off excess rubber on my old rally rims. When I get the new wheels & tires arriving maybe next week I plan to test the measurements to make sure all still is good as I had left it. I did this after 50 miles and the measurements were still dead on where I had left them. Thanks for the reply and I will post what I find when I install the new wheels.

 

Not to sound to stupid, but does anyone have instructions on this string and level alignment proceedure you speak of.

 

What do shops normally charge for 4 wheel alignement on C3s?

 

Around here the shop rate at quality shops is $85 per hour. I work right along with their alignment specialist. It takes about an hour.

Gordon - Camber is a good thing unless you own a straight line car. But then you still have the turn around road at the end of the 1/4 mile.

I'm trying to picture how or why you could not dial in the castor. When one shim makes a radical change. You have regroup and unshim the other mount point. You end up working the front and rear shims as a ratio. With a quality optical units you can adjust settings to .01 degrees.

 

gkull....if you don't mind can you elaborate a little more on how to adjust the castor? I am still learning this stuff and I have been under my car many times but I have yet to observe where I can adjust the caster. I know about the toe with shims from the trailing arm pockets and the toe with the camber adjust rods, but I am not aware of how to adjust the rear caster.

 

The shims on the passenger side has one sliver of a shim in it. This put the castor at 4.6 and the camber at .1. If we added more shims for more castor the camber would start to go up. The car had minor frame damage a long time ago that was not fixed to well. I had it on a frame machine and without major work this was the best we could do. The drivers side we could have easily dialed in more castor but we wanted it to be even on both sides.

 

There is no rear caster. Only the front has castor. The rear you set the camber and the toe and that is it.

 

Hey Gordon...glad you gave them a try! I have never been more impressed by a shop. Absolutely worth the trip and a bargain considering the time and attention they put into the cars. My car is still dead on and a joy to drive. First rate!

Spread the word,
Steve

 

Gordonm...........Good information. I brought my '70 in for an alingment, and the tech wasn't able to figure out how to adjust the rear caster.