Backyard VW wheel alignment

[wdfifteen]

So, I've driven my '65 VW project (Oh Lord, what have I done?) for a few hundred miles, knowing I needed to get a wheel alignment after all the work I had done to it. I basically had two problems, I really enjoy driving the little fart and do whenever I get the chance, and the nearest place that knows how to do a 4-wheel alignment on a king-and-link VW (or 356 Porsche) is 70 miles away. I confess I drove it when i knew I shouldn't, until I noticed strange wear patterns on the new front tires.
So I decided to do a backyard alignment - something good enough to get me 70 miles to the alignment shop without destroying the front tires.





I had a couple of bare VW rims that I bolted on and set on 4x6's to closely approximate being on tires. Tires really get in the way of a hillbilly alignment rig.
You can tell from the picture the toe alignment was way off. I mean WAYYY off. The left wheel had 1/2" of toe out!



I put down a slab of cardboard (I considered a sheet of drywall, but I had cardboard so I used it) and cut a couple of pieces of 1x1 square aluminum tube so they were only slightly longer than the diameter of the wheels. I filed notches in the top and bottom flange of the tube on both ends for the plumb bob string to fit in and clamped them to the wheels.
The first thing to do was to get the wheels centered. I found the center line of the car and adjusted the wheels so the fronts were both the same distance from the center of the car when the steering wheel was pointing straight ahead.



This resulted in 1" of total toe out. From there it was a simple task of getting up and moving my arthritic carcass over and over from one side of the car to the other to crank on the tie rods in order to get 1/8" of toe in while the wheels were centered.


While I had the car up I thought I would change the brake fluid. I didn't have an adapter to use the power bleeder on a VW so I got MrsWD to pump the pedal for me.
"Put pressure on the pedal while I let the fluid out."
No fluid flow.
"How far down does the pedal go when you push on it?"
"All the way to the floor!"
And still nothing out of the bleeder.
After several minutes of frustration at not being able to get any fluid to flow I got up off the ground (for about the 100th time this afternoon) and went to check the reservoir. I stopped and asked her to show me how far the pedal went down before she felt any resistance.
She pushed the pedal to show me.

"Honey. Sweetheart. Love of my life. That's the fu*k'in clutch!"

[Chocaholic]

Great story. Reminded me of the time I needed to roll my Carrera out of the garage. My wife at the wheel, she let the car rollback, down the hill and bounce up the curb and on to the neighbors lawn...screaming all the way. Seems she was also flooring the clutch...but informed me that the last stick shift she drove had the clutch in the middle.

[A930Rocket]

We use to use a homemade device called a trammel bar (sp?). It was a device that lay flat on the ground but had two uprights with a horizontal pin point on them. We’d place foil tape on the center of the tire half way up off the ground and punch a small hole in the tape on both tires, roll the car forward a 1/2 revolution and use the trammel bar with one point in the hole of one tire and and make a new hole in the foil tape of the other tire. Measure the gap in the two holes gave you your toe in or toe out.

At least that’s what I recall. It’s been 35 years. 🤪

[smadsen]

You've gone to great lengths to establish the centerline of the car and establish toe settings from there. Did you center the steering rack, or worm & roller or whatever kind of steering box Volkswagen utilized. Just because the steering wheel appears to be centered doesn't mean the mechanism is centered. Since you're in so deep, now's the time to double check and get it right.

You might also find it useful to shim the concrete slab you're sitting on with linoleum squares so it level, at least side to side. Particularly useful when checking and/or adjusting camber. (Is camber even adjustable on a VW?)

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by smadsen

You've gone to great lengths to establish the centerline of the car and establish toe settings from there. Did you center the steering rack, or worm & roller or whatever kind of steering box Volkswagen utilized. Just because the steering wheel appears to be centered doesn't mean the mechanism is centered. Since you're in so deep, now's the time to double check and get it right.

You might also find it useful to shim the concrete slab you're sitting on with linoleum squares so it level, at least side to side. Particularly useful when checking and/or adjusting camber. (Is camber even adjustable on a VW?)

You don’t necessarily want it centered on one of these steering gearboxes. Obviously you don’t want to be too far off. All the wear is in the center. With an old box you can adjust it to be a little off center so straight ahead steering is a little tighter. The left and right movement is limited by when the tires hit the frame, so as long as the steering wheel is pointing straight ahead and both tires will rub you’re good enough for an old VW.

You can adjust camber, but it is an unholy pain. You have to take the backing plates off!
Camber usually gets set when you have it apart to install new link pin bushings. There is a procedure for it. It’s been done on this car.

Caster can be adjusted by putting shims behind the front suspension beams. No one ever messes with it unless the car has been crashed or some idiot lowers the front end.

[porsche tech]

Same thing 930rocket is talking about but with a piece of string between the tires and roll it half a revolution could at least put you in the ball park.

[schwarz633]

I bought a set of these Tenhulzen 2200 toe plates on Amazon for $100 and used them with great success when I replaced the tie rod ends on my FX35 with 20" wheels.

(Not my car):

[herr_oberst]

I think it's fantastic that Patrick used some stuff just laying around the house along with his knowledge of VW's to get it aligned good enough to keep from roaching a new set of tires, and I'll be interested to hear how far off his jerry-rigged results are from the professionals at the alignment shop. Fun thread.

[Tim Hancock]

I do all my alignments at home. Strings, digital level (just use my phone now). I raise the car then set it down on elevated dolly's. This allows me to slide underneath on creeper to make adjustments. The wheeled dollys allow the car suspension/wheels to move while adjusting. I haven't paid for an alignment in probably 20 years. I was doing this nearly weekly for the past five years on my race car.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

If you hire a shop, Who knows if the kid even did it right?

I happen to know the guy I'm taking the car to. He's got an old alignment rack that projects the angle of the wheels onto a screen about 10 feet in front of the car. An eighth of an inch shows up as something like 6" on the wall. I don't see how I can get that accurate with 1 to 1 measuring tools. He can really fine tune it, and he knows old VWs and 356s.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Tim Hancock

I was doing this nearly weekly for the past five years on my race car.

I spent a lot of time doing chassis work on formula cars. Always messing with camber. The upside was everything was out in the open and easy to get to, plus we didn't have any fancy rear wheel steering like dirt cars.

[speeder]

No matter how good someone is at redneck alignments, you can't come close to the accuracy of modern equipment. But you can certainly get something close enough to drive it to a shop. There aren't any kids doing alignments where I go, just excellent technicians and the latest Hunter alignment rack that cost major 6-figures.

If I lived in the middle of nowhere, I'd have a AAA membership w at least 100 mile free towing included. I live minutes from any automotive resource imaginable and I have 200 mile towing on my AAA plus a car trailer and PU truck to tow it. Just haul the car to the shop and get it done, turn around and bring it home. Grab some lunch while you are waiting. I play w cars way too much and I think that you are over complicating the crap out of this.

[Scott Douglas]

That is a funny story, enjoyed the laugh, thanks for sharing.

Good luck getting the alignment done. I'm just glad I don't live more than a couple miles from a shop.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

All they did was project the line fwd.
Not a big deal..

If that’s all you see in in then yes, it’s not a big deal to you.

[Tim Hancock]

I guarantee I can align my cars at home perfectly. I don't trust the douche bag kids that work at alignment shops nowadays. This is not rocket science.

[John Rogers]

If it is still in the 914 tech articles section, you should have read my article on do it your self alignment. It also gives you a great excuse to go out and buy a Harbor Freight 3 in 1 sheet metal bender/shear/roller along with a nice large steel square.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

Most shops, perhaps 99% would look at you so clueless if you said you wanted the corner weights done along with the wheel alignment.

Yet the VW , Porsche, and other independent 4 wheel suspension systems absolutely need this checked..

LOL! I would love to hear how you propose to corner balance a Porsche 356 or a VW such as the subject of this thread.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

You have torsion bars do you not? (Yes you do)


Volkswagen Torsion Bar Indexing

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=516187

Simple put-you do not know what you are doing.

As is often the case w threads you are involved in, it winds up w people talking at each other instead of with each other. You absolutely do not need scales to balance a VW or Porsche's rear suspension L/R if you know how to index torsion bars. This is assuming that they have been removed and are being re-installed. They are of course indexed w an angle gauge and level. I did not read your link, I've done it several times.

I've never done a Beetle but I would guess that they have a fine adjustment for the front like a 911? At any rate, if someone knows what they are doing installing the suspension pieces and the ride height is close L/R in front, the corner weights are usually pretty close when put on scales.

What I'd like to know from you string and level guys is how do you set toe at say, .5 degree negative symmetrical L/R or camber or caster at a precise spec, also symmetrical L/R, etc?

[Tim Hancock]

An old picture of my long gone E36.... I used a piece of plastic tubing (shown in the foreground on the floor) as a water level to ensure my rolling platforms were level. I then used strings to set toe and a digital level to set camber. On this particular "daily driver" car IIRC, I got rid of some of the rear camber and toe-in to reduce the rear tire wear inherent on BMW's. Car still drove great and handled daily driving fine.



I am not aware of any way to adjust caster on an E36 (or any other McPherson strut type front suspension) other than slotting the upper strut mount, but I adjusted it often on my race car as a tuning tool for my left turn only dirt racing. I made a tool that went in between the two ball joints and set my digital level on an arm mounted 90 degrees to that and pointing forward. I then shimmed my upper control arm to rake it forward or back until I got to the desired degrees of caster I was after.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by speeder

I've never done a Beetle but I would guess that they have a fine adjustment for the front like a 911? :

No. There is no adjustment at all in the front and no fine adjustment at the rear, the smallest change you can make is about 1/4 inch at each rear corner.
I won’t say it is impossible to achieve corner balance on a car with no adjustment on the front corners and only coarse adjustment at the rear corners, but doing so is a matter of luck that the limited adjustments available achieve the result.