Align your car at home?

[Kern Dog]

Heck yeah!
I've grown tired of paying the man to get my car aligned and then not knowing for sure that I got the numbers that I paid for. I'm going to start doing it myself. The start up costs are about the same as you'd pay for ONE professional alignment so why not give it a try?
You don't need an alignment rack.
Guys with 4wd trucks have been aligning theirs with string lines for years. Of course, solid axle trucks have fixed caster and camber angles so all they adjust is the toe....
The Mopar suspension isn't hard to figure out so it is disappointing to repeatedly hear that one of our Mopar brothers took their car to some big-chain repair facility, paid $180 and the car steers as bad after as it did before.
I started this thread to better highlight my own experiences in learning how to do this. Please feel free to add your own observations and experiences. I will surely make a few mistakes during the learning process as I am not trained in this stuff. Like most of you, I'm just a guy that loves these cars and loves to tinker with them.

I recently watched this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAqZyr7JzCw&t=15s&ab_channel=Junkerup%23chrisbirdsong

DC,com member Chris Birdsong recorded the video of how he does alignments using some readily available tools. He doesn't post here much anymore but he is a great asset to the hobby. You can learn a lot from this guy.
The first step is to jack the car up and set it on the turning plates. You can get really fancy with these but all you really need is a way for the tires to steer with minimal resistance. You don't want the suspension or steering in a bind because that will affect the readings. In the video, Chris shows how he made steering plates by taking 2 steel sheet metal segments and after putting chassis grease in between, the two plates will slide any direction you want and stay stuck to each other. See pix:



 

These were simple 14 gauge galvanized steel panels 14" x 14".



I just smeared axle grease on the face of one, then laid another sheet over it.



Now you jack up the car and slip the steel sandwiches under the tires.





The second thing to do is to establish the desired ride height. A trained Mopar mechanic will refer to the manual where it instructs you to measure two parts on the chassis, do some math and come up with a number.
No thanks....
Just about everyone else that I've ever met does it the same way that I have done it: Measure from the pavement to the top of the wheel opening. Once you lower the car so the tires are on the turning plates, you'll see how the top section slips sideways off of the bottom:

 

Cost of metal plates: $44.

[Kern Dog]

The same thing happens on the other side.


You see, usually when you have a Mopar up off the ground and then set it down, the track/width of the suspension isn't established because it is in a bind. You usually have to roll the car forward and back a few feet to let it settle. These grease plate sandwiches/turning plates allow the top sheet to slid over and the suspension settles. See what they do when you turn the wheel:







Now you bounce the front end down a few times and it will settle. You can crank on the torsion bar bolt to raise or lower the car to where you want it. Be sure to bounce the car up and down a few times after each adjustment to get it to settle.

The next step is to establish the caster and camber angles. For that, I'm going to use this:



There are many variations of this tool. Some are battery powered but the one I bought uses a bubble like a level. No batteries to replace and the bubble is basic technology that has worked for 200+ years.  I ordered this one through Amazon.com but it hasn't arrived yet.

To establish Toe,  I ordered these:



Now these are designed to bridge past the tires so you can hook a tape measure over the edges and measure the distance in front of the tire and behind it. These haven't arrived yet either.

Years ago, Mopar Muscle magazine printed an article where a guy mapped the alignment curves of two popular disc brake knuckle/spindles that we use in our cars. One was the 1973-1976 A body version, the second was the much more plentiful "B" spindle that was used from around 1973 to 1989. Here are the maps he charted starting with the A body unit:



The numbers he recorded really surprised me. I couldn't believe how much the alignment really does change in such a short amount of wheel travel. Look at the changes from zero (standard ride height) to 2 1/4" dive and 2 1/4" rise. I was shocked at how the height dramatically changed the caster.

Now look at the later "B" knuckle/spindle:



With the A unit, you gain 3.7 degrees of caster at dive. The B unit you gain 3.4 degrees. 
 I recently raised the car 1 inch. Doing so cost me about 1.8 degrees of caster. I am still amazed at that. It seems impossible that so much changes in such little difference in ride height.

Metal plates:   $44
Caster/Camber gauge:  $136 plus shipping.
Toe plates: $34 plus shipping.
Total so far, $214 plus whatever the shipping charges may be, if any.

[Kern Dog]

What started this project is that I recently raised the red car 1 inch to quit scraping over speed bumps. The suspension is firm so it isn't bottoming out due to saggy bars and springs.

These tires are 200 treadwear and very sticky.



In February last year I had it aligned at a trusted shop. I told them I wanted .75 degrees of negative camber, 1/8" toe in and as much caster as they could get. Since these were not "book specs", I had to pay for the alignment by the hour to the tune of $160. Not a terrible price if it is right though, right?
The man told me that they got 5 degrees of caster on the left and 5.5 on the right.
How do you know if it is right if you don't have a way to check it yourself? Are you a good enough driver to know just by feel?
I'm a decent driver but not that good.

[Kern Dog]

I just ordered these:



I didn't think that I'd need them since the alignment shop was able to get 4.5 degrees of caster years ago and 5.0 + degrees last time but since I doubt their claims and don't trust them, I went ahead and ordered these tubular arms.
I plan to do a series of mock ups and tests to see what numbers can be achieved with stock arms with stock bushings, stock arms with the offset bushings and these tubular ones with 3 degrees more caster built into them.

[Kern Dog]

This arrived last night.














The QA 1 control arms just arrived moments ago.   

   

[Kern Dog]

The QA 1 UCAs just got here.















There was nothing in the instructions about what grease to use. Usually. urethane bushings need a specific lubricant to avoid squeaks. I called their tech line...The man said to just use the same quality lubricant on the bushings as I would for the ball joints.