Installing new inner and outer Tie rods as the old ones broke. On a 1991 Honda Accord EX 2dr

There is no way to get any form of mesurements off the old ones, so how can I set these in to be something close for alignment so I can safely drive it to the shop to get it professionally aligned?

Dont want to mess them up on the way there as its a 50mile drive to the closest shop to get this done.

Thanks

added:

Also putting in new Upper and lower ball joints and new shocks (stock) and coil springs (stock w/ adjusters)

 

do one side at a time. finish one side, test drive and adjust to get near to the previous alignment (tracking straight). then do the other side and adjust straight again.

otherwise, i doubt you could accurately reset your alignment right. some ppl say to count the number of rotatations, but that at best gets you in the right ballpark, but not close enough.

 

I would if the old parts where there, but they are not. They broke off and are gone. There is no way to get anytype of settings from the old ones at all. That is why I was hopeful that some one here whould know roughly the setting or how many turns in per side for me to have it close enough to safely drive it to the shop to have them aligned properly.

Its a 50mil drive to get there and dont want to wreck my parts before I get there.

 

try this. get a long piece of string. thick, like 1/16-1/8" thick yarn almost, not floss. tie it to the front bumper grill, then wrap it around the car so the string touches the tire as it passes, both front and back, wrap around the bumper and back up touching back and front tires and clip again to the front bumper. keep the string fairly tight and taut.

at each wheel, the string should touch the tire twice, at front and back. if the front of the tire is touching but the rear is not, then its toed out. vice versa, if the rear is touching, but the front is not, then its toed in. adjust until its touching each tire twice.

this is how you can roughly check your alignment.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tyson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">try this. get a long piece of string. thick, like 1/16-1/8" thick yarn almost, not floss. tie it to the front bumper grill, then wrap it around the car so the string touches the tire as it passes, both front and back, wrap around the bumper and back up touching back and front tires and clip again to the front bumper. keep the string fairly tight and taut.

at each wheel, the string should touch the tire twice, at front and back. if the front of the tire is touching but the rear is not, then its toed out. vice versa, if the rear is touching, but the front is not, then its toed in. adjust until its touching each tire twice.

this is how you can roughly check your alignment.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I wonder how far off you would have to be before your tire lost contact with the yarn. I bet it would be pretty far.

I would recommend two things. First, turn your wheel as far as it goes to one side and count the turns all the way back to the other side. Make sure when you reinstall your tie rods that you have the wheel pointed straight, or half as many turns as it took to get lock to lock. Second without moving anything in the steering rack, pick a side and install the tie rod such that the wheel is as straight as you can get it by eye-balling it. Now you can turn the wheel to get that tire as straight as you can and you only have to set the other one in relation to the first one. If you're going to make a mistake, set too much toe IN in the front as this will be more stable for a short drive. And do a search for DIY alignments in this forum and the RR/AX forum for some great ideas on how to set your alignment at home for minimal $$$. Tyson's method above is about as rough as I would go, but if you put a little more work into it you can get it very close to straight.

 

travis, a racer i know won championships with the string method. if the string was 1/16th" thick, it was easy to estimate 1/16th" toe out.