Home alignment tools

[Va914]

Hey guys, has anyone tried the alignment tools lik ethe ones below?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2409260895&category=35625


and


http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2409056561&category=6754


I am thinking about getting them. I need to play with my ride height and don't want to pay for an alignment every time I mess with it.

Cheers

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Hmm, not too bad. The Longacre camber thing will be of limited use until you fake up a bracket to hang on your wheel. And at that point, you can put a digital level/angle finder on the bracket and there you go.

For the toe gauge, you can use a stick and pencil marks if you are so inclined...

--DD

[74914]

I just bought what looks like the exact same tools from Harbor Freight for $10 and $13. As one would guess they're cheaply made. I've never aligned a car before but they seem to work and appear repeatable. The instructions seemed a bit lacking, though. Nothing about checking that the car's on a level surface( or how to compensate, if possible), or how to calibrate the camber guage. I need to have it checked to see how close I got it. I haven't checked caster yet, but my guage only goes to +/-3 degrees.
I wonder if anyone here has got a procedure that they use with these sort of tools that they could share. I'd like to sanity check my process and mindset.
Thanks
Ed

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

The most important thing about caster angle isn't the exact angle, but rather making sure that it's the same on both wheels. You can do that with the +-3 degree gauge by measuring the change in camber angle when you turn the steering wheel a given amount. If both wheels have the same amount of camber change, then your caster is even on both sides.

--DD

[74914]

Thanks for the tip Dave. I'll check it that way. It took me a few minutes but I think I understand what you mean, based on the fact that if the caster was 0, the camber would remain unchanged as you turn the wheel.

[ratwell]

I'll be playing with them for the first time this weekend so maybe I'll be able to give some feedback then.

The smarttool that kit comes with is pretty useful and can be purchased on it's own from various sources. It's really great for accurate work like setting the torsion bar angle via the rear spring plates.

[anthony]

There's lots of posts on the 911 board about home-brew alignment solutions. I think there might even be a techn article in the 911 section.