Alignment - Take to a Shop or DIY?

[mstg007]

I did not know if it was possible to do an alignment at home rather than taking it to a shop? I have a 65, and I was curious. Also, what basically consits of doing an alignment? Thanks for the input!

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[Gun Jam]

it should only cost about 45.00 to have it dialed in.

Without a rack and some type of alignment tools it wont be a very doable process and end results should yield a system that is worse than before you started.

-Gun

[Slow_Lane]

its doable but for cost just take to a shop if you attemp yourself try to aproximat the weight you usually haul. I weight about 250 in the drivers seat but when i put the wife in the passanger seat and both kids in the back which is not all that often since she thinks any thing older than 5 years is a death trap it will chang geometry and can be effected by wear on the rest of the cars suspension.

[vineman]

Most shops will have a computer system and rack that will dial in the steering so they can make the necessary adjustments. If you did it yourself you'd prob have to adjust something, then drive to see what happened, then adjust more or less, then test drive again, so on... Cheap and a time saver and better in the end to take it to a shop unless you have the equipment but I have a feeling you don't because why would you?

[Starfury]

Agreed. It's possible to do it yourself with the proper tools, but for most people it's easier to just take it somewhere and get it done. I only do mine because I have access to a modern rack at school.

[groho]

if you don't understand caster, camber, and toe and how they react and impact an alignment, then have a shop do it. Word of advise, go to a shop that is familiar with ole-school alignments. Not every shop has a mechanic that knows how to proper set up an older front end. I took my 66 into a typical tire shop after i did the suspension, and the kid couldn't even get past the metric conversion...im not kiddin. Took him 4 hrs and still didn't get it right.

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by mstg007

I did not know if it was possible to do an alignment at home rather than taking it to a shop? I have a 65, and I was curious. Also, what basically consits of doing an alignment?

Thanks for the input!

The process consists of two basic parts. Measuring, and adjusting. Measure to see what you have, adjust to where you think it all needs to be moved to, remeasure everything. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Adjusting is basic wrenching once you know what to move in order to accomplish the desired adjustment.

Measuring is usually the tougher task for the DIY'er, and you need to have a flat area to set up on; otherwise the measurements you make won't necessarily mean what you think they do.

It isn't all that difficult to DIY your alignment once you understand what caster, camber, and toe settings are, and what sorts of error can creep into your measurements. You will need patience and a willingness to re-check your measurements. Caster is something that you usually have to calculate from two camber measurements - the math isn't tough at all, but the caster determination isn't exactly obvious either. $40 will buy you a Harbor Freight angle finder with 0.1° resolution which is adequate for most purposes here.

If you know ahead of time what you want to set the various alignment parameters to, you won't have to drive it around to see if it's satisfactory. I can tell you that with radial tires you'll likely want camber that's somewhere between less positive than OE spec and slightly negative, and possibly less toe-in as well. Any closer than that needs some knowledge about how the car will be driven (in particular how hard will it be taking corners), more about the car itself and perhaps the specific drivers (i.e. power vs manual steering as it applies to driver upper body strengths), what the roads around where you live look like (how much crown).

I've been DIY'ing my own alignments for . . . crap, getting close to 40 years now. I seem to have done OK by my own work, my cars have all tracked straight, handled pretty much the way I wanted them to, and I haven't had to buy tires all that often, so it's entirely do-able. It's nice not having to argue with anybody when you want to try some non-standard settings.


Norm

[bodyputtyless]

The trouble is that most mechanics these days are under 30 and they have never aligned a car without the use of the computer alignment rack. The other problem is most modern computer alignment racks "don't" have the alignment specs for early Mustangs or any other car from that era. Oh, they'll charge you $45 but you won't get an actual alignment.I went through this about 5 years ago. The dude aligned it and when I drove away it was nowhere near true. I returned to the shop and the mechanic told me, "I only did what I could do because I don't know the specs. If you can get them I can punch it in to the machine and I can start from there." Fair enough answer, but my front end was still out of line. I have since learned to do it myself using manual tools bought of line. It's not like the front ends on these cars are GT40 race suspensions. Its just basic math combined with proper tools. Anybody can do it. I have about $150 in tools, if that.

[THUMPIN455]

Take it to a shop, not a Pep Boys or large chain like that. They usually only know toe and go, I know I worked at a Pep Boys in Charleston SC and I was the only guy in the place who knew how to do an old car. I was also the only guy who could rebuild a carb.

If you dont get the toe right, the tires will wear fast, same with camber. Camber isnt difficult to adjust on Mustangs, its the bottom bolt in the lower control arm. It has an eccentric. More caster will make for better high speed handling, less camber makes it easier to turn at low speeds like a parking lot. I usually dial in as much caster as I can get on my hot rods.

Also a drag race alignment is very different from a daily driver alignment, although it can be done if you are willing to put up with some weird stuff like the tires wanting to follow tar strips.

Sure you can get close with an angle finder, but you have no idea how it lines up with the rear tires and its difficult to find the true camber because the sweep screws everything up. If the rear doesnt line up with the front, you get dog tracking and/or the steering wheel wont be straight while going down the highway.

Not that you cant do it at home, but you really REALLY need to know what you are doing and how to do it. Eastwood and Summit both sell a tool for $145 that you can use the old way, and yes I want to get one when I can since alignments are one of the things I cant do right now because I dont have the tools for them. I plan to have it checked before I just start driving around with an alignment I did with it, to find out how accurate they are.

Man I made good money doing alignments, I could do 4 of them in an hour on the newer cars or two older cars in an hour. Alignments paid me 1.1 hrs each, so if I did 4 of them I was getting 4.4 hours for that 1 hour, so that was $88 an hour at my rate. Its nice being an ASE Master tech, it pays slightly better even part time.

[.boB]

Doing it yourself is not impossible. You'll need to buy an alignment tool, for around $125-150. A couple of tape measures, a large flat surface, and you're set.

It takes some practice. The first time you do it will take all day. And it will be wrong. And you'll have to do it again. Pretty much the same thing for any new skill.

I do my street/track car 12-16 times a year. It would be foolish for me to take it to an alignment shop every time; too expensive and time consuming. I also do my other vehicles about once a year or so. Only because I have the tools and the know how.

But, if I was only going to do it once, or even once a year, I'd take it to a good alignment shop. You could get about 3 good computer alignments by a pro for about the same money you'de spend on tools. Of course, shopping for new tools is a always fun.