So after a full body off, I took my car to be aligned. Frame tram gauged straight, then had it fully seam welded and gussetted, and then tram gauged again, so frame should be taken out of the equation. Also need to mention I am using Global West upper and lower control arms. The uppers have additional caster built in. So as soon as they got the car on the rack, they called me in and said they would have trouble getting the front aligned. Initially the caster was there on the front right but not on left. You could see how much farther back the lower ball joint was on the left side as the lower control arms shaft was much closer to the inner tie rod. They were guessing that the left front spindle was bent, but I know how unlikely that would be. So, as seen in the pictures, the front right has 3 thick shims on the front and none on the back. Left front has 2 thick in the back and none in the front. Give me your thoughts on what could be going on. Oh, and my dimension between frame A arm towers was spot on at 26 3/8ths. Thanks.


Before

After



Right front

Left front

 

if you take the frame out of the equation it just leaves the aftermarket upper or lower control arm faulty on one side or the alignment rack needs calibration . How does it drive ?

 

That's a lot of camber for the street.
If you are going to autocross it that's different.
Caster is even, but toe-in is high.
Even thrust angle is good.
Shim packs are pretty even.

Large camber and large toe-in will wear the inside edges of the tires, and you may get cupping wear.

I would never use the alignment specs built into a machine. Those are for skinny 1972 Bias Ply tires, not modern rubber. These are excellent and are either from VBP or Van Steel, and vary by intended useage.



Personally I would go lower on the camber, like .5 degrees for the street. No need to go lower, there is no effect on wear with radials.
I would go for much lower toe-in in the front, that's an 1/8" I'd go almost to zero.
Rear toe I would leave at 0.14 (1/8") after they re-do the camber.

Now for the set-back issue:
With all your new parts I would expect it to be one of two things: 1) a bad a-arm or 2) bad alignment setup & calibration
0.3 degree setback is 3/8" back at the wheel. If the wheelbase is really off that much you can measure it with a tape measure. Your printouts say it is 0.6" longer on the right. I would verify this. If it is true, and only if, then I suspect one of your a arms is the cause, It's 3/8" off. And that seems highly unlikely. But if it is that far off it should be easy to find.

My opinion of many alignment shops is not too good, because a lot of them depend on the machine, and do not understand the basics. Unless you go to an old-school guy with a lot of experience. You do not need a $50k machine to do an excellent alignment. Tape measures will do. If they are good enough for Penske's winning 200 MPH Indy car they are good enough for me. I did my own Pro-Solo alignments for my race car for 27 years, sometimes weekly. Cargotzman has an excellent write-up in this forum on how-to.

Their printouts look very good except for the curious setback issue. Verify.

One last thought. Do you have the global west upper shafts with the slots for the mounting studs? If so the alignment guy would never in a million years expect to look for them and could have one slid forward and one slid rearward. The shaft holes would look something like this: (I made my own)

 

I'd measure your arms and make sure they are the same (but mirrored, of course), and I'd measure the diagonals from your upper A-arm mounts with weight on the wheels, to make sure they are square to each other. It looks like you have a shock tower cross brace installed. Is that correct?

Just to clarify, the 5 degrees of caster isn't the problem, it's figuring out why your upper A-arms are shimmed very differently, right?

 

Here is 1 thing you could try / check. Here is how I check the wheels / axles / frame setup. I place a confirmed straight bar and place under the tires and measure the distance between the bars. It should = ~ 98" (Wheel base) and both side should be equal.
Also make sure your tire pressures are equal on all tires and there is equal wear on the tires. If they are not equal both sides then there are problems with the frame / suspension / suspension mounting points.

But from the sheets displayed It looks like the car is not square at the axle points. For caster measurements this should not be a problem. Caster is the upper arm vs the lower arm. This can be only 2 items. The mounting points of the arms upper vs lower arm or the dimensions
of the upper & lower arms (bent). I would measure the distance of the arm lengths . Bushings to ball joint and compare passenger side vs driver side control arms.

 

Thanks for the thoughts guys. The car drives fine the way it is. Just want to figure out what is going on as pre restoration it wasn’t like this. Leigh, I think the negative camber was necessary to even up the castor. The shop I used has a great reputation and was recommended to me by quite a few forum members. I will dig in to what you guys told me to do and see what I can come up with. Thanks!

Leigh, I don’t have the slotted cross shafts on my arms.

Oh and Bikespace, I do have a spreader bar. And it is very crooked as a result of the way the upper arms are shimmed lol!

Bill

 

I see that your front shaft bolts have no shims so they are bottomed out. So you can not take the negative camber out with out removing caster (bringing the back shaft in by removing shims)

I put 1/4" offset shafts in mine for that very reason, you could do the same. Then you could pull the camber out and keep your desirable 5 degrees caster. I know Global West has them. Initially I thought that was what you have, but yours look centered.



To me I would fix it. But I am OCD about suspension. Too many years auto crossing I guess. It will increase your tire wear. But with that engine I do not think that Front tire wear is going to be your issue anyway LOL!

 

Leigh, I am every bit as OCD as you. Seems that would not help my wheelbase problem, right? I will figure out what is going on. I was just shocked with all I did to this car, and finally ready to drive it and get it aligned, and they call me over and tell me something isn’t right. No good!😀

 

Yes agreed. The camber has nothing to do with the wheelbase issue. However the caster might. It just seems so unlikely to me that Global west could have made an a arm that is 3/8" off. I am sure they have a jig for that or something. If they are the increased caster arms that is about the amount that they would have to move the upper ball joint back from the "normal" spot. I do not see how they could double that on one, or forget to do it on another one. Unless....do they also offer arms with "normal" caster? And you somehow got one of each? Measure the upper arms carefully. Triangulate. Ball joint to Fr & Rr bushings.3/8" off should be easy to spot. We are not talking about hundredths or thousandths here, it's almost a half-inch.

Update: Just checked Global West they only have one type of upper a arm.