After I got my rack and pinion steering half a year ago, my rack was now lifted on the cradle so that the angle between the lower control arm and the tie rods was equal ( http://fyi.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=2049). That would affect the  bumpsteering to a minimum. Also my fixed strut rods were replaced with adjustable strut rods for more fine tuning. Time for a new alignment.


The new adjustable strut rods



The old fixed ones.



The new adjustable strut rods


So I went to the align mechanic, again. A few months ago he aligned the car because of the new rack and pinion. My 1965 Mustang was the first old Mustang he had ever done with an alignment.  The alignment equipment he uses is from Hunter, USA made, and uses a 3D technic.
After one hour examening he wasn’t for sure how to align the car in this new situation where the caster could be set by adjustable strut rods and by adding, removing shims. And when one was set it changed the other settings. How to start. I had also bought shims this time and arrange it in a box so that would simplify the job a little bit. These shims had also engraved sizes, 1/8”, 1/16” , 1/32”and 1/64”. The last time I had a box from my mechanic complete with shims of Ford, GM etc with no marks, little difference in thickness and was quite a job to find the right one.





So I contacted Steve Wilkes again, who also adviced me with the spindles and the rack and pinion steering. After some email exchange there was a plan born for the alignment.
The goal was: Caster +3, Camber 0, Toe in 1/8”


1-set the adjustable strut rods the same length as the old one, in a non stress position on the bushing.
(When you first start the alignment, you want the lower control arm to be 90 degrees to the axis of the lower control arm bushing, not forced into a forward or rearward condition that would put stress on the bushing. SW )
 
 



2-set the caster to maximum what possible is about +2.5º or more if possible
( I do not like to have a large difference in shim thickness on the same control arm because when you tighten the bolts, it tries to bend the shaft to conform to the flat areas determined by the shims.  3.5 degrees caster, you can probably get that with shims, depending on how long your UCA mounting bolts are. SW)

3-set camber to 0º  (zero degrees)

4-now shorten the strut rod so that the caster will increas to +3.5º  , meaning   +3º (degrees) and 5' (minutes) 

5-again setting the camber back to 0º (zero degrees), because of the wheel movement forward

6-now, at the end, the toe in will be set to 1/8" which is the same as 0.28 degrees totally, per wheel 1/16" or 0.14 degrees


















It was quite a job. He started at 8.30 and finished it at 16:00 hour. This was also included with two short  test drives.