Checked my front end alignment yesterday and I found it to be way off.
I performed what I call a poor man’s alignment on my truck yesterday with a friends (Andy’s) help. This can be done solo but it requires a lot more running back and forth when you are aligning the strings to the wheels. Also it would be considerably more difficult to check string to string alignment without some to help hold the stupid end of the measuring tape. And by the way, Andy made me hold the stupid end all the time. Hhhmmm?
What we did was to tie a string between some concrete blocks and place one end of the string just behind and around 12 inches out from the front wheel. The other end of the string was stretched out around 20 feet in front of the truck. (See the images) The string was centered in the wheel from top to bottom. We had the same string set up on both sides of the truck.
Our first step was to insure that the strings were perfectly aligned with the front wheels. We assured the alignment of the string to the wheel by making sure the string was exactly the same distance from the front and rear of the rim. We checked the string to wheel alignment on both sides in this same manner. After aligning the strings to the wheels we proceeded to check the strings out in front of the truck for parallel alignment by measuring the distance between the two strings just ahead of the front wheels and comparing that to the distance between the strings out at the furthest point from the truck. We found the strings to be around 3 inches further apart at the outer string location as compared to the inner or closest string to the truck location indicating a toe out.
We then loosened the jam collars on the tie rod and made adjustment to it that eventually had our two strings perfectly parallel to each other. Keep in mind that every time we made an adjustment to the tie rod our first step was to realign the strings to each wheel and then to check for string to string alignment. After getting string to string alignment as close as you can get it, it’s a good idea to move the steering wheel back and forth a few times and check the alignment all over again. If you find the alignment changes each time after moving the steering wheel, it could be an indication of looseness in ball joints or kingpins.
We took the truck out for a run afterwards and found the side to side shimmy I was getting at certain speeds was gone.
The only problem I had with this entire procedure is that Andy now thinks I owe him a pay check and medical benefits.
Van
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to hvann For This Useful Post:
Why not just measure between two fixed points on the front of the tire tread and adjust tie rod to equal the same measurement for the backside of the tire tread.
WIth tires that big your radius of measurement(which will determine accuracy) is 24 inches or so... and that should be good enough.
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Corey J
Harrison, Arkansas
1947 CJ2A with powerplant flathead 4 cyl
195? M100 trailer
1953 5 ton bridge truck with dump bed added
1972 Kaiser-Jeep M35A2 wo/w soon to be w/w
1974 CJ5 soon to have 4.0EFI, TF999 and D300 twin stick case
1985 AM General M35A2C with lift gate
2001 Jeep TJ w 1 ton axles and 42" TSL IROKs
Avatar: XM757 in OK prepared for 1,000 mile trip home. Part of 6,000 mile journey in 2006.
1968 M49A2C modified with 1960 M756A2 truck bed and 1975 HIAB 765A knuckleboom, exhaust brake and more. (SOLD)
1969 Ford XM757 8x8, 5-ton Pershing 1A truck tractor...the "improved MV".
"Some things can't be made better, just differently......a lot of things actually"
Why not just measure between two fixed points on the front of the tire tread and adjust tie rod to equal the same measurement for the backside of the tire tread.
WIth tires that big your radius of measurement(which will determine accuracy) is 24 inches or so... and that should be good enough.
Hey buccaneer.
I do believe you are correct that it could be accomplished using the tires but I was looking for the best possible accuracy under the circumstances.
It has been my experience that tires can have some fairly large inconsistencies in them, and the larger the tire the more these flaws can become amplified. You can jack up most any vehicle and rotate the tire while holding something stationary near it and in doing so you will see some sort of rotational wobble. Flaws in the molding process and even in the mounting to the rim will end up causing the tire to have some sort of small rotational inconsistencies.
Poor mans wheel alignment
