Being one who would rather keep as much of my money in my pocket as possible and totally pissed off with taking my car to places to be stripped of £100 just to check alignment and camber I thought I'd give the DIY method a go.
I recently had all my front suspension off (standard struts and camber bolts) to fit new track rod ends and fitted it all back up using the measurements in the manual as a rough guide.
Once all back together it was quite obvious that the front camber and alignment needed some serious attention. So I thought I would just sort out my front alignment on a temporary basis just so I could get the car to a “specialist” to sort both alignment and camber out accurately.
Knowing that the back wheels were straight I centered the steering wheel and made a clamp to lock it into position. I got 2 axle stands and a string plumb line, doing one side at a time I put a stand at the front and a stand at the back of the car, then tied one end of the plumb line to the rear stand pulled the line taught across to the other stand so the line was resting (just) on the outer most points of both front and rear tyres. It was obvious that the front required adjustment and you could see which way it needed adjustment. Anyway, I set them to 0 + or – a nats, was quite careful and did both sides the same.
I then took the car to the garage for JUST an alignment check and according to the specialist it was spot on (stun, shock and amazement)
This encouraged me to try and make some sort of equipment to do it again and also try and gauge the camber.
Whilst trawling the net searching for clues I came up with these few threads that make very interesting reading
http://www.weblumen.com/subaru/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1267&KW
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?f=135&h=0&t=258944
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1093484
Although I understand the basic’s, all this trigonometry is a little over my head, but using some basic and readily available materials (Laser lines/digital levels/steal rules e.t.c. e.t.c)
I know Jim uses a steal rule and a calculator, which is all well and good but there must be someway to make something up that accurately actually tells you the set camber.
Thoughts ?
I recently had all my front suspension off (standard struts and camber bolts) to fit new track rod ends and fitted it all back up using the measurements in the manual as a rough guide.
Once all back together it was quite obvious that the front camber and alignment needed some serious attention. So I thought I would just sort out my front alignment on a temporary basis just so I could get the car to a “specialist” to sort both alignment and camber out accurately.
Knowing that the back wheels were straight I centered the steering wheel and made a clamp to lock it into position. I got 2 axle stands and a string plumb line, doing one side at a time I put a stand at the front and a stand at the back of the car, then tied one end of the plumb line to the rear stand pulled the line taught across to the other stand so the line was resting (just) on the outer most points of both front and rear tyres. It was obvious that the front required adjustment and you could see which way it needed adjustment. Anyway, I set them to 0 + or – a nats, was quite careful and did both sides the same.
I then took the car to the garage for JUST an alignment check and according to the specialist it was spot on (stun, shock and amazement)
This encouraged me to try and make some sort of equipment to do it again and also try and gauge the camber.
Whilst trawling the net searching for clues I came up with these few threads that make very interesting reading
http://www.weblumen.com/subaru/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1267&KW
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?f=135&h=0&t=258944
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1093484
Although I understand the basic’s, all this trigonometry is a little over my head, but using some basic and readily available materials (Laser lines/digital levels/steal rules e.t.c. e.t.c)
I know Jim uses a steal rule and a calculator, which is all well and good but there must be someway to make something up that accurately actually tells you the set camber.
Thoughts ?