I have a 1990 Coupe and both tires on the left side of the car are wearing more on the outside part of the tread than the inside. Looks like I might need an alignment done on it, perhaps just the camber and caster? How easy/hard would that be to do myself. I dont have too much knowledge of cars but I am pretty handy given the right tools. :)

Thanks as always

 

sounds like a toe problem rather than caster and camber.

 

I sent you my instructions on doing your own 4 wheel alignment.

 

Mez... I would like to see how that is done without the proper machinery.

 

Just finished my D44 conversion and had all 4 wheels aligned for $79.95 at a shop in Houston. They had 2 C5's (1 was a road race car) and another C4 at the shop when I got there. They got mine within 1/2 degree and gave me a printout. Before I could drive it to them I spent 3 hours with a tape measure, levels, carpenter's square, and long straight edges to get the rear within 2 degrees. My '95 Chevrolet manual says get it within 1/2 degree. After all my effort I don't see how you could align a vette within specs without the proper equipment. To answer your question - could you align it yourself - NO. Anyway, $79.95 is a lot cheaper than prematurely replacing $250 tires.

 

I agree with VetteNTexas, It is certainly worth spending the $'s to know the job is done right. There is NO way you are going to get that kind of accuracy doing it yourself. :cheers:

 

I respectfully disagree.

.5 degree is more than you may think. On a 29" diameter tire, this is .0625" or 1/16th of an inch. The spec is 1/16th to 1/8th inch toe-in at the tread so you may have 1/16th or 3/16th. I get 1/32" accuracy using my method and have risked a new set of $$$$ GSC EMT tires on my system.

I do not wish to insult anyone, but I don't automatically assume a high-tech piece of equipment is automatically better than a low tech method. Why do shops buy laser alignment equipment? If they could not make money with them, they would not buy them. Thus, they can do the work faster with the minimum amount of cost (i.e. skilled labor) with good accuracy.

Conclusion
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Would I like to have a laser alignment system? Sure. It would save me time. Do I think it is more accurate? Not necessarily.

 

Could you send your procedure my way? I designed an electronic caster camber system for snap on tools early in my career. It was a long time ago, but I'm not senile yet, and recall the majority of the issues. Would like to review yours to see how it's done, since toe in and camber angle should be possible, since I have done it myself once or twice. Getting the caster angle on the front would be quite difficult, but perhaps you have a reasonable method there, or possibly didn't modify it at all. I believe the caster angle is NOT a wear angle, and like on a bicycle, is the one that keeps you going straight when you release the steering wheel. It is generally set to offset the crown of the road, since you don't want to keep pulling to the right. Anyway, on the systems I did, the tires were on some rotary tables and a gauge was clamped magnetically to the spindle. The wheels were then rotated right and left through a certain number of degrees of turn an the total tilt measured. This would be tough to do in my driveway, but it's probably not needed most of the time, and if one tried hard, probably possible to emulate. My interest is how you square up the front and the rear so it doesn't "dog track". When I have done it myself, on some beater vehicles that needed front end rebuilds, it was a real pain in the #$%! However, it did work just fine, but can you spell "patience"! At minimum, it would be a great check to see how far out the suspension is prior to taking it in.

 

As you correctly pointed out, caster measurement is not as easy as toe and camber. I have never sensed caster being a problem and, as you pointed out, it's only purpose is to help center the steering wheel in a straight line (ala bicycle). However, I am working on a simple method to do a measurement on this also.

To eliminate "dog tracking", all four wheels must be aligned at the same time to insure they are all pointed in the right direction. So the only issue is how to make a very accurate reference line on both sides of the car from which to take measurements. If you put your mind to it, there are lots of ways to do this. I did some research on the internet, and found others who published similar home-make wheel alignment instructions.

I took the effort to do this myself because I am cheap and hate giving my car to a shop to work on. And, yes, it takes more time to do it at home.

I will email the instructions to you shortly.