Did mine again about a month ago.  Easy as pie.  Fastrax gauge, turn plates, and a tape measure.  It does take some patience, though you will develop a feel for how much turning say the camber eccentric (or adding a certain thickness shim) affects the numbers.  I set caster first (3-1/2 + degrees LH, 3-3/4 + degrees RH), then camber (0.5 - degree both sides), centered the steering wheel, and lastly set toe (1/8" total in). 

There are some tricks to it.  First, progress in the order given above.  Caster affects camber, so if you try to do it  backwards you'll chase your tail. 

Second, the suspension needs to be settled, so run the car around the block first, then drive onto the turn plates, or roll the car.  If you must jack it up, place the jack under the LCA to keep the suspension loaded.  If it unloads you'll get erroneous readings, or need to run it around the block again to settle it again. 

Third, there are all kinds of ways to center the wheel, but the simplest is to start with both tie rods the same length.  Then just adjust each side equally when setting toe.  This way you know that when the tape reads say 55" on the back and 54-7/8" on the front you're at 1/16" toe in per wheel or 1/8" total toe in, and the wheels are located properly relative to the chassis. 

The risk with any shop that doesn't specialize in older cars, or come recommended by those who drive older cars, is that they could either use the factory specs, which were for bias ply tires and will make a radial tire equipped car handle like a death trap, or they just set it wherever is simplest and not necessarily to your specs, meaning you aren't getting the most out of the suspension from a handling perspective.  The actual adjustments are not terribly hard, so its unlikely they would screw up based on that.  Modern cars don't use shims, so there's an element of difference if you have a '65-'66, but '67 onward use eccentrics,. which are still the way camber is set today.  Toe adjustment has been the same basically forever (will they bother to center your wheel though?).  Caster is shim adjusted on '65-'66 unless you've added adjustable strut rods, which '67 onward have stock.  If you understand how a alignment works it shouldn't be tough to figure out how to adjust one of these cars, so you would think someone who aligns cars everyday would be okay at it, but the claim something is idiotproof seems often to underestimate the idiot, so I suppose from that standpoint its still a bit of a gamble. 

Lastly, the specs which I used for my car are for cars that have the Shelby/Arning drop.  Stock UCA location will make that much caster impossible, and you would want more like 1.5 degrees negative camber due to the significantly worse camber gain under cornering.  I'd had my car aligned at least three times over the years by various shops, and it was never really right IMO.  When I learned to do my own alignment I discovered that the caster was WAY off side to side, and the wheel wasn't actually centered (Tires made a parallelogram and they just clocked the wheel to give the illusion it was centered).  This distrust that bred has led me to just do it myself from then on. 

I worked at Pep Boys(years ago) They CAN NOT! align any car that is not in their computer system(doesn't go back to 60-70's era)
I had a Poop Boys "claim" they could align it....Tulsa OK......I ruined two tires before I could get to an "old skool alignment shop to put in the correct specs. (They bought me two tires BTW)
ALL the ones you mentioned (probably) are the same way.
Find an Old school shop to do it.
6sal6

You can read caster the same spot you read camber also.  Turn the wheel 15 degrees in and zero the gauge, then turn to 15 degrees back and read the gauge.  That's your caster angle.  Also why I bought turn plates, because they have angle reference on them.  The steel plates or trash bag thing works (you can actually use dish soap too for easier clean up), but its too imprecise.  I found a set of turn plates on Amazon for like $100 that work great.  Easy to use, no clean up, and easy to store. 

Years ago I did the super cheap approach as well.  Its not that it doesn't work; its that it takes more time.  These days my time is simply worth more than my money.  With a fleet of a half dozen vehicles to keep on the road, and each one needing periodic alignment I considered the less than $300 I spent on my turn plates and Fastrax gauge an investment.  At $90/alignment, which is the going rate around here, it pays for itself very quickly.  I can align anything with wheels up to 17", which covers everything in my current fleet. 

BTW, if you buy the Fastrax gauge be sure to buy the wheel lip adapters.  The pin style attachment method it comes with doesn't work that well.  I would not both with the toe adapters.  A tape measure is still IMO the best way to set your toe, and the simplest. 

Rufus68 wrote:

Since caster is the angle that the spindle is tilted at, why not just measure caster off the upper and lower ball joint points?  This direct measurement seems to be a more straight forward method than measuring the change from turning the wheel.

That is how I, and it sounds like Bullet Bob also, measure the caster. The aluminum 1" round tube with notches at the ends in my pic above, slips over the exposed ball joint threads to measure the caster angle.
 

Last edited by rpm (6/20/2018 9:12 AM)

Well, since the high buck method has been used for years, and involves trigonometry, I do believe it would be very accurate. Human error on the lo buck method would be easier to accomplish me thinks.

I'm in Dallas.  See my recent how-to on how I did my alignment at home on my 65.  If you really want a shop to do it, Dallas Mustang recommended Bill the Muffler King and had I not done it myself that's where I would have gone.  I went there recently to have some exhaust work done and Brian, who is a big-time car guy, did an excellent job and was very meticulous.  BTW, if you're in Dallas, we'll have to get together some time!

After refreshing my whole front end Pep Boys was recommended. After noticing strut bushings were spinning, I was told older model cars don't need camber and Caster adjustment. Another Pep Boys had to go to Lowes for 1 1/8 wrench to fit strut rod nuts. Finally got it worked out then the guy left on the Firestone.