Hi all.

My 86 Z51 needs alignment bad - I went over a massive pothole about a month ago - now the car is pulling bad to the left and the rear tyre is wearing on the outside edge.

I`ve never been fully happy with the way my car feels - it feels way too light in a straight line - but too heavy on bends - i kind of like it to be the other way round - do all of the C4`s feel like this or is it all down to alignment. - I know there is other stuff to get checked like ball joints, bushes etc. - I`ve replaced the shocks though.

Anyway i don`t wanna go over the top with the alignment settings - i just want the car to feel how it should be on the road under normal driving - so would i be best going with the factory settings - or going for something like the vettebrakes Daily Driver settings - though it says the car will feel light with those ?

I know how u want ur car to feel is pretty specific to each person - i just want mine to be the reverse of how it feels at the minute

:(

any advice / oppinions r a gr8 help as always.

Tnx

:chevy

Dom

 

:lurk:

 

:cheers:

I use the Vette Brakes Advanced? I think that's right :rolleyes:

But I have also installed bigger sway bars front and rear

Very happy

:seeya

:steering:

 

Tnx, for ur input - alignment day didin`t go to well though :(

Took it to the garage where it was booked in - and they said they couldn`t fit the car on the ramp cos its too low lol - Ford garage - so obviously they can`t do anything lower than a Ford Focus :mad

Fortunately found another garage round the corner that can do it - but not until Monday :cry

Anyway they did have time to put it on the ramp and print out the current alignment specs - no wonder it drove so bad :crazy:

Front Left Toe 0deg 25` Front Right Toe -0deg 12`
Front Left Camber 0deg 50` Front Right Camber -0deg 35`

Rear Left Toe 0 deg 15` Rear Right Toe 0deg 17`
Rear Left Camber 0deg 34` Rear Right Camber -0deg 44`

I get the general idea of the way the wheels r pointing from that - but does it make sense to you from those figures that my Rear Left tyre is the worst affected - wearing badly on the outside edge ?? - like I say the car pulls bad to the Left as well...

One more thing - The also checked the Front Caster and said it was out:

Left 4deg 52` Right 6deg 35`

They said its a massive job to do the caster, I would have to order the shims myself and would cost twice as much for the alignment if I wanted them to do it - but they said that putting the caster back to specs won`t make a big difference compared to the other settings - is this true ?
:skep:

I really dunno much about alignment as u can prolly tell - so appart from this forum I`m really in the hands of the workshop guys.....

Tnx again

:cheers:

Dom

 

Those shims are just little aluminum square flat pieces with U shaped holes in them. I can't imagine a shop that's not ripping you off charging that much to get some more. More than likely, they wouldn't even need that many to get it back into spec. Probably, just moving some around would do it.

It's actually not a big deal to adjust. All there is to do is loosen the 2 nuts on each upper ctrl arm and move the shims to where they need to be. The shims have the U shaped cuts in them, so the ctrl arm bolts don't need to be but a little loose to get them in there.

I think the shop was being lazy and didn't want to give you what you paid for, a complete alignment.

Chris