As i have been replacing the steering components and adjusting the steering box...my fb is alot less sloppy...but it needs an alignment. that's the only thing i don't do myself..
I can see the conversation now with the counter person at pep boys.
"If you take too long to get to it, you will have to pump the pedal a few times, push it to the floor, pull the choke out, crank it, ignore the giant puff of smoke, immediately trim the choke back to a non damage inducing rate, give it a moment,and then pull it into the bay."
Jeez.

 

Do a youtube search for string alignment. Take your time and do it on a level surface. I've done it for years with no issues.

 

Or go to a real tire place that has folks that know how to do an alignment. A good alignment is
worth money. If they let you sit in the car when they do it thats ideal but some places won't due
to liability reasons.

 

A good alignment may be worth the money, but I've had too many bad one's with my RX-7's, it's as if they need to screw it up because it's a rotary.

I use the string method, it's free, easy and with a little fussing you can get it just right, better than anything I could ever get at a tire shop.

To wrap your string, tie it to the right front tow hook, wrap it axle height back across the passenger's side wheels, around the back and then forward on the driver's side wheels, then tie it off on the driver's side tow hook, nice and tight.

The string should just touch the front wheels on both the front and back edges when you have it pointed straight ahead. Then I give it just a bit of tow in, about 1/8".

The tricky part is getting your steering wheel perfectly centered, this can take a bit of back and forth adjusting if it's really out of whack.

 

the string method, or toes plates are great. top tip, the toe plate can just be any old flat thing, with a small cut in it for the tape measure.

for the MGB, which is more approximate, i just eyeballed it. my brothers VW which is a giant turd, and is missing an adjuster, i just lined one side up with a really long cardboard box, and took pics and sent them to my friend until he said it looked right.

 

Just tell the guys not to turn the engine off. Say "its a bitch to re-start it". They'll understand. I would.


Worst case they shut it off and push it off the rack. Then you restart it when its in a parking space.

 

Thanks guys!
I may give it a go myself. I could always do laps around the parking lot.

When I had the slopped out idler arm, bad tie rod and loose steering box, the wheels where dynamically auto aligned...they had enough play to go where they wanted to, and so the sheer force of motion made them more or less line up. Thats sort of like when my old Geo never needed an oil change--it was continuously refreshed as it leaked out and was topped up.

 

I've always wondered, when you guys talk about he string method; how the hell do you reach the adjusters without lifting the car (and thus throwing the geometry out of whack?)

What do you do, dig a hole to work in or something?

 

I recently "attempted" an alignment myself using myself and im pretty satisfied with the results. The car drives nice and straight at highway speeds and beyond and the steering response is pretty good.

Unfortunately you have to lower the car on a set of slip plates every time you make an adjustment to check how it sits with the suspension at resting height. Its kinda a pain in the *** but the last people i trusted my car with to do an alignment managed to make a great mess out of it all...

 

"What do you do, dig a hole to work in or something? "

You just go under there and loosin the nuts on the tie rod ends DD, no big deal.

You don't even need to jack the sucker up if you weigh less than 175 lbs, jst reach under there and get it.

If you are fatter than that, you might need some help with the jack, but even a fat guy can go in there and do the minor adjustment with the car on the ground.

If you have a flat pavement to work on, that's cool. But it's not really a problem in a gravel driveway if you pick a level spot.

 

You could drive up on some ramps. That would hold the suspension accurate. But I still say just take it to a shop. Then get the read outs so you know if you should mess with the strut mount plates or not. Because there is NO way a regular mechanic is gonna mess with them.

 

nah once you take a couple whacks at it at home, its way easier and faster at home. especially for something simple like a 1st gen.

 

I worked in a shop for a few months so I thought I'd be bringing my FB in for an alignment once it's finished.

Then I remembered that I'm going to have an SE rear end with an FC front subframe - imagine me trying to tell the shop, "Well it's an 84 chassis, with an 88 front subframe, with an SE rear end - so I don't know what you should put it in the computer as..."

 

lol, its a mac strut car, you want to start at zero toe and all the negative camber you can get.

 

we are running the sideshow to the IMSA race at laguna this weekend, the Mazda race of NASA champions. we had some time to walk around the pits yesterday, and i was a little surprised that every single team used string to align their cars. i guess i though someone would use toe plates or something.

they all have a pair of bars that go on the car, rather like a bike rack, and these hold the string, and in the picture you can see that the string is literally a fishing reel. there must be some setup to get the string square, but after that they just measure to the wheel rim with a ruler.

most teams added the thing in pic 2, it bolts in place of the wheel, and lets you take the measurements, and since its not a wheel, you can make adjustments without pulling anything else off. probably not visible, but there are wheels on the bottom, so it can roll, although we saw other things like air bearings.

so have no hesitation using the string method, its what the pro's use

 

Yeah, but they buy a set of tires after every other race.

 

so? they also align the car after every session

 

I'm just saying my car isn't a race car, I daily my 7. I want tires that won't cut, and camber that keeps it strait. $40 at an alignment shop isn't to terrible of a price. When you get more information out of it, than what a string can say.