joelmatt89

So after replacing the suspension bushings and one of the half shafts i am a little out of alignment so i want to adjust it. I did it in the past and was pretty successful. But i have a couple quick questions, i looked at the service manual and it says toe should be 0, I know on a lot of cars the alignment is toed in a little has anyone messed around with this at all.

My main question is, does the steering rack have a point it returns to ie. if the wheels are parallel is that all that matters or should i find center for the steering rack and then set the wheels parallel with the steering wheel at this position. I have heard answers that go both ways so i was just wondering if anyone knows for sure.

BTW Please don't waste my time by getting on here and making some stupid comment like "stop bein cheap and take it to a shop to get it aligned."

waaBAAH

as long as the wheels are parallel for toe you will be ok for tire wear. IMO a crooked steering wheel is annoying. if the wheel is really off (like at 10o clock or 2 oclock position) then possibly you could have a slight pull/drift due to caster trying to straighten out the wheels.

a slight toe-in condition is ideal according to the manufacturer because they take into account that when you drive down the road, that your bushings will have some minor "give" to them resulting in a 0 toe setting.

a negative toe-out condition will make the car more responsive in handling due to the inside tire (while turning) creating a little more drag which makes the outside tire pivot around faster.

rear toe is very important as well

DirtyDMC

uh. You cant. Alligning your vehicle needs to be done on a allignment rack. If you have the old school magnet style allignmenbt heads you can get it close to good but they dont do a gret job by any means. Dont be cheap when it comes to that. Just because it doesnt pull doesnt meen that your rubber isnt dissapearing.

its only 80 bones to have a tech do it. Hondas dont have much as far as adjustment goes so its easy for a tech to do it. And even if your tires arent wearing you still will most likely only get half the traction your car is capible of. Plus, poorp alignment can cause wheel bearing wear, suspension wear, and end up costing you more money than it would have been for an allignment. You cant eyeball it. Dont try.

joelmatt89

Thanks waaBAAH that was exactly what i was looking for.

You=failure. Are you even being serious. Since you have the stupidity to reply like that let me explain where i am coming from.
1. I just wanted to know because i was curious.
2. Obviously you can't just eyeball it but there are many diy methods that work very well.
3. The reason i don't want to fork over 80 bucks is because i will probly have all the control arms and suspension taken apart in another week or so so there would be no reason to waste money on alignment, i just wanted to get it drivable.

Next time you think about posting how about you read the origninal thread then read it again then take a couple seconds to think about what your going to write. If you are using firefox or explorer they have a convinient little arrow pointing to the left on top left of the screen. This is commonly known as the "back button". When you have completed the process of realizing that what you were about to post was completely pointless you can press this button to navigate away from this page and back to the list of other threads.

MonkeyMagic

wow! OP is killin 'em! nice! get'em!

also waabaah pretty much knocked this one out of the park.
thats about as much as you need to know for a street car

boostatic

if you just wanna make sure ur front toe is ok..just take a measurement at the wheels..pick an area to measure to..measure from the front of the LF wheel to the RF wheel...then measure at the back of the wheels..you want that measurement to be the same..then you know u have 0 toe..do u understand wut im sayn..and how can he say u cant do an alignment by urself..if you know wut ur doin its easy..what does he think they did before they had alignment machines..lol..

dragginfly

Just a bit to add to this.... to get an honest reading, jounce the suspenion first, then push the car forewards and back a couple feet to settle the suspension, then measure as described above. Just make sure your wheels and tires are true running.

Jonknee

Dude, just go grab a laser level that draws straight lines from home depot. Thats how i did it, takes some creativity. In the end i ended up going to les schwabb to see if it was off, and the guy said it was right on the money.

dividedas1

do a write up on how you did this. that would be baller status. seriously. :-) you would give some hope to most of h-t :-)

DirtyDMC

This just goes to show how much you guys know about suspension. Sorry that I was trying to be helpfull. I forget that teenagers know everything and hate taking advice from veterin mechanics. It's my bad for having over 20 years of auto repair under my belt, multiple certificates in automotive, and these stupid A.S.E certs. My bad.

joelmatt89

Yeah i have done it with a laser level in the past but i didn't really think it was much easier. It was just kinda annoying cause i had to turn the light's off in my garage. But thanks for the tips guys.

Yeah it is your bad that you didn't read my post. I clearly said i wanted someone to answer my questions not tell me what i already know. Obviously the best the best way to do it is on a machine. But my question was not the best way it was how can i do it myself so i can get it as close to accurate as possible so it is drivable for a week or two.

Let me explain something to you the reason i don't take any of my cars, boats, jet skis, quads, or motorcycles to mechanics is because i like to know how every little thing works. All my experience with mechanics in the past have been people like you for some reason if you ask them a question they tell me something along the line of "well you can't do this yourself" or they give me some answer that is basically saying "you wouldn't understand" and then they tell me what to pay them. So when i get onto a website like this and ask a question like this I am looking for an actual answer that will help me gain a better understanding of how my machine works. When you tell me to just take it to a shop that does me no good and is just a waste of my time.

BTW If your going to get on this website with a big head acting like you know everything why don't you just leave. There are plenty of mechanics on this website who have much more experience then you and actually try to help people.

newtron63h

so i guess the old days of doing alignments with string was total garbage? i guess also in racing since they pretty much only use a tape measure to set up the suspension....they have no idea what they are doing either?

certifications and ASEs are good. they look nice to people that dont know what they are. but the fact is that you dont have to know how anything works on a car to be able to pass the test. about 95% is simple memorization. more than enough to pass. you certainly dont have to know how to FIX anything to get ASEs and such.

BigDrJ14

I like that people don't read the entire original post and then reply exactly what you said please do not put. F'in hilarious

Dogginator

OP, have you tried the string method? I can't remember if I saw it here.

shak3yb0n3z

what r u talking about? i'm an ASE certified technician also and you CAN align your vehicle without an alignment rack or anything more then some string and common sense.

if you've been around for 20 or so years then you should know this. how do you think they did alignments before computers?

i align my cars at just about every autocross event i goto using nothing more then string, a couple of hand tools for adjustments and a jack.

my car drives straight and handles perfectly and my tires wear evenly.

maybe you need some re-education!