Alignment help please

So I had the car up on the stands last night and I decided to go ahead and measure the alignment settings. I have never assembled/disassembled the suspension on one of these. I'm sure that there is an easier way and some tricks that some of you have figured out. What I'm asking for is advice from those of you that have performed alignments on these cars and any tricks you can share.

What is the best method to lengthening the rod ends in the control arms? Unbolting the bracket or the rod end itself? Should I just remove one at a time or both? Is it easier if I unbolt the coilover?

What's the best way to get to the rear rod end on the front lower control arm?

I would rather lengthen the inner lower control arm rod ends to gain some negative camber instead of shortening the upper control arm.

As you can see in the photos it appears the lower arm rod ends are all the way in.

Thanks in Advance
101227
 
Yours is an earlier frame but I'm assuming all the critical information such as arm lengths and pickup points are identical.

Post 14 of my blog goes over my initial alignment and chassis setup, lots of details in there along with measurement numbers if you want them for comparison.


For the front lower control arms, I ended up setting it so the inner rod ends are fully wound in, otherwise my tires would stick too far outboard of the body. I'm also running -2deg camber at the front. With that, and some trimming of the fenders, I'm not getting tire rub during bump/hard braking.

With respect to best method for accessing the rod ends, it will depend on how your bolts are configured - you may not be able to extract the connecting bolt without having to pull either the pickup tab or your shock. I shortened my bolts and turned them "heads out" specifically so I could remove them without needing to remove the brackets. (This detail is covered near the beginning of my blog post).

To get to the rear rod end of the front LCA you'll have to pull the nut and bolt from the interior of the footwell.

My recommendation - take a look at your front LCAs, if both inners are turned all the way in, leave it that way and adjust the UCA rod ends to get the camber you're looking for (where is it now?). Caster can be played with but if you keep the spacing the same left to right you should be fine. Your body may be sitting differently than mine; you may want to disconnect your coil-overs and articulate the suspension to simulate bump and verify you won't have tire rub issues.

BTW - if you've had the car up in the air and you put it back down, there's a good amount of hystersis in the suspension. You'll need to jump up and down on the car or drive it around a little to get things to settle back down.

Last note - your vintage of car likely has the older rod end design. If you're going to be pulling arms and twisting rod ends you may want to do yourself a favor and get some of the newer style rod ends now and replace them while everything's apart.
 
Thanks Cam,

I am taking Bruno (the name of the car) to an Auto-x this weekend for a light shakedown and see if anything falls off or squirts out.

I am planning on changing them out as I adjust everything. It's just that time is tight. I run a 2 car endurance race team so prepping the race cars takes precedent. I had this week open with nothing on the lifts so I am taking advantage of it. Gotta start prepping the cars next week for the October race.
 

Bill Kearley

Supporter
Not hard to do. Place car on stands, remove coilovers and install turnbuckles, adjust turnbuckles to correct ride and adjust using a good angle gauge for caster and camber and a laser for toe.
 
Don't know where you guys are located, my alignment machine is up for auction in Kansas City area. It is a Hunter D111, old but very accurate. I've had it for about 10 yrs, used many times. Invaluable. Keep your eyes open they come up for sale every once in a while. I've had others similar like the one above, an all out machine is very nice.

 
I'm good on equipment and knowledge on the how to's of alignment and corner balancing. My question really pertained to the best way to go about removing the control arms so I could adjust the rod ends. Thanks
 
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