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Men,
Trying to pin down my highway wandering and decided to check basics before anything radical. Since I installed adjustable strut rods, I decided to check that first. Measured from the rearmost outer edge of rear rim to front most edge of front rim, (right across the center caps), and used the strut rods to make the left and right wheelbase the same length. Then I measured the tread to tread distance, left tire to right tire, comparing leading and trailing edge of the front tire, making sure that the front edge had a left to right distance 1/8th inch less than the rear. This should mean I’ve got a toe in. Took her for a spin and found a slight tendency to draw to the left which had not been present beforehand.
Does this mean I need to check corner to corner wheelbase to see if I’m not square? What else would account for pulling to the left? (The wandering is different, but not necessarily better)
Time to take it to a pro?
Last edited by Lance (10/20/2017 7:01 PM)
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Ill be following your post. I had a wonder also that I cant figure out. Have the Rack and coil over suspension. Steve69
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What about caster or camber?
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In my recently updated opinion...you should endeavor to BECOME the Pro and NOT take it to an "pro". We have a local guy who understands these old cars and will take the time to get them right...well, sort of. I had him touch up the alignment on the Heap before we left for FWB and half way there it was making unusual noises. Josh, Gary (RV6), Bob (RPM), and I did some parking lot investigation and discovered that the nuts on both UCA's were finger tight. My fault for not following up but then should you have to follow up? I guess one answer is YES YOU DO. The other answer is DO IT YOURSELF. I did ours years ago and it was fine for over 15K. Then I lost my mind and got lazy.
Buy a Longacre camber/caster gauge and learn to do it yourself. For your slight left pull I think you should check that the caster is equal and try to get 2 to 5 degrees positive if you can. Then set up the camber to zero to 1/2 degree negative. Use string touching the rear and front tires to set the toe to 1/16 to 1/8".
It's a PIA messing with shims and pulling and replacing the wheels but on a level floor you can get it very, very good and the time you spend will be well invested.
At least that's my opinion.
BB
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Well, I'm not a man, but I will weigh in anyways.
I assume by the fact that you installed adjustable strut rods that you must have a '65/'66 car. For those particular cars, you need to let the shims do the talking. While the adjustable strut rods should theoretically adjust caster, if you change their lengths side-to-side (i.e. make the left longer than the right or vice versa), it will do silly things to the steering geometry. On the '65/'66s, it is best to set your adjustable strut rods at the stock length and resolve as much of the caster/camber issue as possible with the shims, and then adjust the strut rods further if absolutely necessary. You could be getting wandering to the left as a result of having two different lengths of strut rods, which causes each side of the suspension to act differently from one another.
The best technique for alignment would be to get an alignment gauge and use that, rather than measuring wheelbase - keep in mind that these cars are not necessarily even square to begin with! My '66 is set at 0* camber, +3.5-4.0* caster, and +1/32" toe, biased just a smidge one way to account for road crown. No wandering at any speed, even exceeding 90 MPH, and I've got power steering to boot. I did my own alignment with a Longacre gauge for caster and camber, and then had a guy do toe because I suck at measuring in units less than 1/8".
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I'll second what BB and Kelly are telling you. Adjustable strut rods are a bit of a red herring. The strut rod in these cars is really more to stabilize the LCA than it is to adjust caster, and they're definitely not a solution to try and true the chassis. Consider how they work. When you shorten the rod you are pulling the outer ends of the LCAs forward, but not in linear fashion. The inner pivot points of the LCAs don't move, so as you adjust thw strut rods you are cocking the LCAs out of perpendicular to the centerline of the car. I don't want to get into a treatise on chassis design, but you are also screwing with your Ackerman angle, which can make the car twitchy.
GM cars (I know, I know) don't even have strut rods. They use an LCA with two mounting points. All caster/camber adjustment is made with shims between the UCA shaft and chassis. That's how you really need to adjust your '65/'66 Mustang too.
If you need more caster a much better solution is to relocate the UCA mounting point a la the Shelby drop. Everyone gets hung up on the lowering of the UCA mounting point, but part of the magic is also moving them rearward a bit. That adds more static positive caster. It also accomplishes that without touching the strut rods, and adding all the negatives that brings trying to adjust caster that way.
I would also highly suggest picking up a caster/camber gauge and setting your own alignment. My experience over the years with shops has been spotty at best. Most have no idea how to set up an older car. You can't go by the book specs, because they were designed for bias ply tires and will make the car handle like a death trap. I've heard good things about the Longacre gauge. I personally use a Fas Trax gauge. Consider that a typical alignment costs around $90. I think I have about $300 in my setup. Pays for itself in short order, especially if you have a fleet like I do...
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Ditto, with stock lower control arms, you shouldn't add too much caster with adjustable struts. They'll over work and wear out the lower control arm bushings. You should just fine tune. The big advantage is getting rid of the rubber biscuits that compress erratically. The rod end doesn't and provides a lot more stability under braking and better over all control. I have adjustable struts on my 66 as well as lower control arms with spherical bearings that I could add a lot more caster with the struts if I wanted to. I just fine tune caster with them. Two things that will cause our cars to be all over the road are worn parts especially lower control arm bushings and crappy factory alignment specs. You need caster and as much as you can get. I would highly recommend you get the Ford shop manual which has a lot of valuable information on setting alignment and how to use the shims and do your own alignment. Here is a thread I did on DIY home alignment.
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Bullet Bob wrote:
In my recently updated opinion...you should endeavor to BECOME the Pro and NOT take it to an "pro". We have a local guy who understands these old cars and will take the time to get them right...well, sort of. I had him touch up the alignment on the Heap before we left for FWB and half way there it was making unusual noises. Josh, Gary (RV6), Bob (RPM), and I did some parking lot investigation and discovered that the nuts on both UCA's were finger tight. My fault for not following up but then should you have to follow up? I guess one answer is YES YOU DO. The other answer is DO IT YOURSELF. I did ours years ago and it was fine for over 15K. Then I lost my mind and got lazy.
Buy a Longacre camber/caster gauge and learn to do it yourself. For your slight left pull I think you should check that the caster is equal and try to get 2 to 5 degrees positive if you can. Then set up the camber to zero to 1/2 degree negative. Use string touching the rear and front tires to set the toe to 1/16 to 1/8".
It's a PIA messing with shims and pulling and replacing the wheels but on a level floor you can get it very, very good and the time you spend will be well invested.
At least that's my opinion.
BB
To some point I agree with BB as it applies to most things on our classic cars. However, at some point you have to be able to admit that what some guys are good at others are not. I don't know if it is my skill level or my patience but after devoting 3days to the driver side only I came to the conclusion that I lacked both. Thru a friend that successfully races a Factory Five Cobra I found a shop that did my alignment to my specs and have it driving beautifully. Just sayin. Moving on to the rear disc brake project.
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Can that be qualified? How were you trying to adjust it? What tools were you using?
The reason I ask is that I've done alignments years ago with less than stellar tools and it took immense patience and was more of a trial and error process. The new tools make this pretty easy if you're willing to invest in them. So long as, like Huskinhano says, you understand what you're doing.
One thing you need to understand is that changing caster affects camber and vice versa. I prefer to proceed as follows: Caster, camber, then toe. I've found this is the simplest way, as the prior setting has the least influence on the later possible. If you dive in and try to set camber first, then toe, then caster for example you are going to be ripping your hair out in short order. You'll get the camber right, then the toe, then it will all go to hell when you adjust the caster. After 2-3 beers drinking another to think about it also begins to have diminishing returns.
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I second TKO's comments with some additions. When one sets the caster, the camber has to be in the ballpark, along with the toe. In order to set the caster, one has to turn the wheels to the left and to the right the same amount, and check the bubble on the wheel, then make the necessary adjustments. I used to teach the old Hunter string align setups common in the late 70's and 80's. There are a few other things as well, such as locking all 4 wheel brakes, finding the wheel center in the gearbox and so on.
My adjustments would to be set the camber, get the toe reasonably straight, then check and set the caster, then review the camber and toe, they WILL change. Once the caster is set, you can forget about it. Toss in king pin inclination, scrub radius, bump steer, excess toe on turns, and one can have a real time setting up a front end. Many high end cars also use a spring loaded spreader bar to simulate the front wheel drag to properly set the front toe.
As for a car pulling one way or the other, caster will have the most effect, aside from tire pull.
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Tom (Huskinhano) also has a very useful chart telling you roughly how much caster and camber a 1/8" shim will add or subtract based on where you put it on the UCA. That's what I used to do my alignment and it was a lot easier than the good ole trial and error method. I just took the original measurement, calculated what shims I needed to go where to achieve the measurements I wanted, and put them on. Hit the nail right on the head right away.
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66 coupe wrote:
I second TKO's comments with some additions. When one sets the caster, the camber has to be in the ballpark, along with the toe. In order to set the caster, one has to turn the wheels to the left and to the right the same amount, and check the bubble on the wheel, then make the necessary adjustments. I used to teach the old Hunter string align setups common in the late 70's and 80's. There are a few other things as well, such as locking all 4 wheel brakes, finding the wheel center in the gearbox and so on.
My adjustments would to be set the camber, get the toe reasonably straight, then check and set the caster, then review the camber and toe, they WILL change. Once the caster is set, you can forget about it. Toss in king pin inclination, scrub radius, bump steer, excess toe on turns, and one can have a real time setting up a front end. Many high end cars also use a spring loaded spreader bar to simulate the front wheel drag to properly set the front toe.
As for a car pulling one way or the other, caster will have the most effect, aside from tire pull.
That's absolutely true. My assumption was you were setting alignment on a car where it was already reasonably close. If you start off WAY out of whack though you do need to get it close enough to start, or you're back to chasing your tail.
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