I see various products for sale to allow you to measure camber and toe at home. Does this stuff work accurately? I would love to adjust this stuff at home, if I can accurately measure it.

 

IMO, those tools will never be as accurate as a professional laser alignment

 

A good boxed string alignment is a very accurate way of setting alignment.

As for camber, well, realistically, .2 degrees is hardly going to do anything to the tires, considering all the other squishy suspension bits we have.

Yeah... I know Scott, suck it up and buy the Smart Camber kit. Maybe, but I'm still leaning towards $39.99 ghetto racerwholesale parts

Warren

 

A few helpful links:

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=267237
http://www.vtr.org/maintain/diy-alignment.html

Warren

 

recently i got to use the $60 toe plates from longacre that look like (and basically are) flat aluminum plates and two slits and use two tape measures, and they worked very well. as for accuracy, you dont NEED to be as accurate with laser setups. and the ability to check it quickly and on the spot is more important than accuracy anyway. although $60 seems pretty steep for two aluminum sheets and two tape measures, im thinking its worth it.

theres also the string method, which has several variances, but the way i know is you take a piece of string and just wrap it around the car at the center of the wheels and you see how much of a gap there is between the tire and string at the front and back of the tire, and thats your toe. if you got a 1/16" thick string, all you need to know is how many string thicknesses you are at the rear of your front tire and thats your toe in 1/16" increments.

I also recently inquired about a cheap camber guage. the $10 ones that harbor freight are junk. however, i have heard you can get decent results with the $30 set at RPW. but i imagine you get what you pay for in comparison to the smartcamber.

$60 toe plates, $30 camber guage < $100 for DIY alignments, not bad in perspective.

YES they work.


[Modified by Tyson, 11:40 AM 9/5/2002]

 

I recently used a camber guage from Whitney. I was skeptical, but what the hell. I had the ENTIRE left side suspension apart for an axle change and needed to get it close. The guage said the right side was ~2.0, so I just used that side to match the side I had taken apart. Took it to the alignment shop last week, and instead of 2.0 it came out 2.2. BUT, it EXACTLY matched the right side. They may not be completely accurate, but they are apparently repeatable (precise?!?).

I set the toe with a tape measure. Was 0, got it back to 5/64ths total out. Not bad for a jackass with a tape measure and a borrowed camber guage.

 

Absofugginlutely irrelevant. "Accuracy" is overrated. Entirely satisfactory results can be achieved with competently used inexpensive apparatus.

Scott, who having been told this by well qualified experts proved it to himself conclusively on track.....

 

i'm just speaking from my experiences. i've used the cheap tools, and my results were never what i wanted

 

Tape measure, ball of string. Much cheaper than taking it somewhere. Take the time to learn how to set Camber and Toe. This will save you alot of money in the future. Then go get a pyrometer and pressure gauge to determine if you set up is working properly or not.

 

Next question....

Where are you guys aligning your cars? Are your driveways relatively flat? My driveway is sloped, and the streets in my neighborhood have serious crests in the middle, so I'm reluctant to do any aligning at home.

 

Thirsty, can you explain the "ball of string" process to me?

 

Does anyone have the RWP camber guage yet? I am curious if the smart camber guage is worth like $10 bucks more.....

 

like i said, there are several variances of the string method. i mentioned the easier method above. but you can also set it up by getting some string and tying it to some jack stands and then placing the string tight and just touching both fore and aft sidewalls of the tire on each side. then you just measure toe by putting the tape measure across the car front and back of the tire and subtract the difference of distance between strings. you can take it one step further and do this to compare the front wheels alignment to the rear wheels by placing the string across both front and back tires. doesnt have to be string as long as you can make a straight line, but easier to transport a ball of string than long pieces of metal stock.