climberd

True DIY alignment. My car is 100% stock, but same principles apply to almost anyone.
Preparation: Emptied trunk, 7/8 tank of gas, had my tool boxes to weight the driver seat to simulate regular weight distribution the way I drive.
Found level piece of tarmac, measured with level to verify. It slopes down 1" from front axle to rear axle, but corners are even. Marked each wheel corner with spray paint for repeatability.

Drove car on alignment area, making absolutely sure to drive in straight with the steering wheel perfectly level. Got out of front seat, put tools in to simulate close to my weight. The idea was to get 'close enough', not ' dead perfect'. You will see me get way overkill in there measurements, so plenty of care is taken already.

Measured camber with a bubble level, and a 1.5" L bracket taped toward the bottom of it to rest on the bottom machine wheel lip. Ruler to top wheel lip. Measure difference in distance with a ruler.

Measured toe by taking my two rhino ramps (or any object ~12 inches high or more) and putting them near the side of the car, one front one back. Tied string on both ramps, pulled tight. Starting on the right side of the car, measured the distance between each center cap and the string. Move my two string towers (my ramps standing on end in this case) until distance from string to center caps was identical front and back. Then measured distance from string to front of wheel lip, and back of wheel lip. Do same on other side of car.

Here were my starting specs
FL: -2mm camber, 1mm toe in
FR: -2mm camber, 1mm toe out
BL: -6.5mm camber, 0mm toe
BR: -6.5mm camber, -1.5mm toe
Then when I put 160lbs in the trunk,
BL camber now -8.5mm,
BR camber now -8.5mm
So adding cargo or back seat passengers can add 0.3* camber easily. Damn soft suspension.

*Using an online triangle calculator, and measuring my wheel side length from inside lip to inside lip at 15.5" aka 394mm, I determined that 1mm = 0.15* (degrees).
Analysis Notes:
Both front tires were facing to the right, so my steering wheel was never straight.
Was Running -0.3* camber front, -1* camber rear.
Back right toe was .25* in.

Already probably all within spec (except rear camber and right rear toe, but I can do better

TOOLS:

Front is easy.
Front Toe: 14mm open end wrench, 19mm open end wrench, 19mm flare.
Front Camber: 22mm socket and I didn't write down the other side, but it was close to 15/16" (my metric set only goes up to 22mm).

Rear was annoying on ramps. I needed breaker bars.
19mm bolt and nut on each adjustment, so 19mm sockets or socket and closed end wrench (probably better with offset).

ADJUSTMENTS:

Note: Generally first you set camber, then you set toe.

Front Toe: 1/8th of a turn of the inner tie rod = 1mm = 0.15*
Front Camber: I didn't touch it. 0.3* is fine for me for now. Might mess with it later.

Rear Toe and Camber adjustments are annoyingly mixed.
Front bolt: Mostly adjusts toe, though also a bit of camber.
Rear bolt: Mostly adjusts camber, though a bit of toe.
Rear marking plates: There is a center hash mark, with 6 smaller hash marks to either side. I had to get pretty inward on these markings.

I went through a couple revisions on the rear. Basically guess and check style. I did not record my starting points well enough to determine a logic. Maybe each hash mark is 1mm. That would not surprise me if right, but may be wrong.

Final Results for me:

FL: -2mm camber, 0 toe
FR: -2mm camber, 0 toe
BL: +1mm camber, 0 toe (Might actually leave camber like this, for various reasons).
BR: -2mm camber, 1mm toe in (This corner just needs more time, fine for now).

I'm nearly maxed out on the back's rear bolts, and have 2-4 ticks left on the back's front bolts.

Anyways, hope this inspires someone to do their alignment, saving time and adding precision to their LS400 (or any car really).

Torque Specs:
Not much on the tie rod lock nut, but the othe bolts are all really high, like 125-185ft/lbs IIRC. If you care, look them up. I've turned enough wrenches to know roughly how tight I'm making it, so if I die that's my problem. You might want to be more careful.

climberd

Separately, just wanted to comment how annoyingly compliant the suspension is. Eventually I'm going to pull apart the whole suspension and inspect each rubber bushing, hoping something is at least partially torn. I'm confident that even if I aligned the wheels dead perfect, I still wouldn't get the satisfying driver experience of the steering wheel being centered and everything being neutral. Will replace the struts at the same time. Coming up on 50k, so not quite time. Rears are pretty done, Fronts are not bad. Yes, 50k miles on a 1990 car. Don't ask about it. It wasn't driven much. No it's not for sale. No you can't have my address.

xinkid

stock specs for my 98, all numbers are per side

front:
-0.4 to 1.1 deg camber
6.3 to 7.8 deg caster
0.05 to 0.25 deg toe

rear:
-1.6 to -0.1 deg camber
0.00 to 0.20 deg toe

I'm surprised front allows for positive camber. I guess the double wishbones must have a really good camber compensation curve. I come from an MR2 with McPhersion struts that needs a bit of static camber to compensate for camber loss in roll.

A little bit of toe-in front and rear will make the car drive more straight and make the steering wheel stay centered. Even racers like to toe-in a little to make the chassis more settled for high speed driving. just FYI.

xinkid

BTW, 126 in-lbs is only 10.5 ft-lbs

Good job on the DYI alignment. I'm too lazy to do it so I pay firestone 190 for lifetime alignment.

climberd

Thanks for pointing out my typo ft/lbs vs in/lbs. Doing 120in/lbs on the alignment bolts would be very very dangerous. It's super easy to adjust front toe. Just a tie rod rotation, per the amount I listed. Rear toe is a *&%^*.

I wonder if I have a caster issue from a low speed front right bumper collision. Car still always pulls to the right a bit, VERY frustrating after dialing in everything so nicely. Might take it to a shop just to have them assess the alignment (specifically caster). I'm in no mood to make my own caster testing rig. After driving at high speeds on a long road trip, I agree I may add some toe in just to make it feel a little more stable. It won't stop the pulling though.

I see the front lower suspension arms have some means for caster adjustment, but looks like the threads on the arm going into the front bushing have a tack weld, so they can't be adjusted... frustrating.

There is a great body shop near me, may be time to take it to them just to get the information. Could anything else cause it to pull to the right? I suspect all the bushings are fine and arms are not bent, but who knows.

climberd

Perhaps related, when I go over a speed bump, the front right makes a rubbing sound like the tire rubbing the fender or fender liner, when the front right suspension compresses. Visual inspection shows no problem. No signs of wear under there. Only happens when cold. When I warm up the car via driving for a while, noise goes away. This must have something to do with it, since car otherwise has never had anything ever happen to it. What on earth could this be?

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

i'm curious how you got under the car to adjust all this. was this done in a pit?

climberd

Nope.
Measured all four corners when car was on flat cement in my marked area (had to pull straight forward onto the marked, level area to make sure steering wheel and rack would be centered).
Then drove front end up on ramps, made adjustments.
Then rear end up on ramps, made adjustments.
Then drive around for a couple moments and pull in straight onto marked test area again.
Re-measure, then repeat adjusting steps where needed.

Certainly not as fast as with slip plates, but once you get to know the adjustment per X turn or X notches of each bolt, then you can pretty much nail your alignment with the first round of adjustment. I didn't quite figure out the specifics of the back yet, but generally I know I'll have to move the one final corner's bolts half a notch on each to get it dead on with camber and toe.

The savings should add up over time, like after I eventually change the struts and any worn bushings if applicable. Lifetime at Firestone is a good value, but they make you wait a while (at least around where I live) and it's rarely ever dead on when they do it with computers, on the clock. This is more convenient for me personally, and I get to enjoy knowing with certainty the precision is there. FWIW.

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

wow that's tedious work, but i understand the tradeoff. good work sir!

climberd

Thanks!

Got car aligned today. Printout says:
Caster FL 8.8*
Caster FR 9.1*
Sweet, perfect for driving on the right side of the road.

My front toe was dead zero but the tech toe'd in my left wheel so now I'm running 0.2* total toe. I wish he hadn't. Easy to undo though
Camber was perfect, IF a person had been sitting in the driver seat. But since front left weight was lighter than when driving, camber was not a perfect match. I like my way better, which weights the car better. Before it was just a novelty. Now I see it making a numerical difference. It probably threw off the other corners to some extent.

I was not done with my left rear wheel, so they finished it for me. 0.3 camber on both, with less junk in the trunk than I normally carry. The tech just played with the front bolt on the rear left corner (does mostly toe, though inadvertently helped my camber a bit), and nailed it. Wish I
could say the same for the front left corner.

Will find out if the car still pulls. If it does (and I think it will), then

From there... change tires? I have heard of certain tires being hard to align. Mine are Goodyear Assurance TripleTred's closer to new than bald. What a pain...

RA40

iTrader: (6)

Nice job
Curiously, how long did this take?

climberd

Few hours first time, faster once you figure out what X change to Y bolt results in angle change. Once you know, you can nail the perfect alignment in one or two tries.

climberd

Been 20 months since I did this. I have since learned new and better tricks, and now have a much more serious garage in which to do it.
The new tricks are this:
Camber: A Fowler digital angle gauge ($60 on Amazon) with integrated magnets, accurate to 0.1*, which I will mount to a straight piece of metal. Hold this up against the wheel, and there's your wheel angle instantly. Camber will become stupid easy this way.
Toe: Mount the string TO THE CAR BODY, so that it is automatically spaced a consistent distance from each wheel center cap. I saw this on a lotus forum. The time suck is the toe, so this will save a lot of time not moving around the stands that hold up the string normally. I will do the string-on-stands method just once more to confirm the published zero track width difference front to rear. With the string mounted to the body, it stays put between cycles of lifting the car to change settings. I've thought about things like lasers and may still go that route, but I would want two ($$$) and for what they cost and the frequency of their use, it's probably not worth it. We'll see. Magnets to hold the string to the car body, would be most excellent.

Largefarva

Damn, I value my time way to much to do this instead of paying for it, lol. What about caster though, how do you read that? Also not sure why your toe is at zero? RWD cars usually like positive toe on all corners.

LScowboyLS

Yes, although this is an extremely educational skill to do yourself at least once, $75 to have the latest Hunter laser machine do it is just too good of a deal, time and precision-wise.

Pro tip: when selecting a shop to do your alignment, call the Hunter sales rep for your area and ask him which shop has recently had their machines calibrated, and which shops have newer equipment, and which shops have the most competent alignment tech - he will know these answers, because he visits all of the independents and all of the dealerships!