[70calypsomach]

Well its time to alighn the mustang for the first time. I got everything somewhat close (eyeing it) everything has been replaced so it was way off.
I got the alignment specs from the manual. I am guessing I will need to supply these as the new Hunter alignment machines do not have them in the data bank (I checked at work). You will have to manually add them. The only problem I see is Toe which is in inches where most machines today read in degress.
Can you just take it to the local shop? and will they be able to convert the inches to deg.?

 

[Dean]

In the Seattle area, Les Schwab does this. They have done all of the alignmants for my old shop, and continue to do alignments for my personal cars.

 

[camachinist]

Who aligns your mustang

I do...did both the D-coder and race car

How about 1 to 1.5 degrees for a typical wheel tire combination?

I did my alignments the hard way, with some machined guages which mount to the wheels, a tape measure and a lot of instinct. The race car used McPherson-type struts, so setting camber (0 deg) and caster (8 deg) was easy (angle finder on strut body). Used a piece of tubing with some adjustable uprights and scribes to set toe (1/16" to 1/8" in ). The interesting thing about the race car front end is that the left wheel is about 1" ahead of the right wheel, so it made some of the measuring more interesting. Old racer's trick..*G*

Someday I'll build some laser fixtures and get this arcane setup into the 21st century *G*. FWIW, I aligned both cars once (race car in '81 and D-coder in '93) and tire wear and handling (neither is a road racer *G*) is fine for me...D-coder oversteers just a bit due to having a 5/8" rear sway bar with the stock front sway bar but it's pretty predictable.

Find a shop that knows how to do a 4 wheel alignment on a car like yours....that'll likely indicate competence...

Have fun!

 

[L20068]

Les Schwab does good work out here in Northern California, too...

 

[Guest]

I just took my '68 to Precision Alignment and Brake, in Downey, CA. 562-803-3908 Does good work at reasonable prices.

 

[johnpro]

I had all mine aligned by OK Tires. They were cheap, and did a great job. I went to the because of references I got from several sources.

 

[jester66]

I've had three different cars aligned by Big O Tires, mine in particular being in Oakland. Nice folks, and the Mustang was the cheapest of all the cars to align at $49, even though it seemed to involve more labor than the other two.

 

[jester66]

The interesting thing about the race car front end is that the left wheel is about 1" ahead of the right wheel, so it made some of the measuring more interesting. Old racer's trick..

Not being an old racer /forums/images/icons/wink.gif, I'm confused about what this trick accomplishes?

 

[camachinist]

I'm confused about what this trick accomplishes?

More rollout in the beams...allows the car to be moving more substantially before breaking the beams and tripping the red light.....I generally go when the last yellow just begins to illuminate (on a full tree)

Tall tires accomplish a similar goal....also running less pressure....within reason *G*

Since my car goes forward, not up, more rollout makes me more competetive. NHRA limits chassis wheelbase offset to one inch but I've never seen anyone check a bracket car.

 

[sidewinder]

I hope you have better luck than I. I had to tell the alignment guy how to adjust the caster and the camber.

 

[tbear1]

Mark,
I have taken my classic cars to a place called Harolds Frame Shop in Redford on 8 Mile Road. Their prices have been fair and I have been happy with their work. I will take a look for the number and PM you.

Glenn