Alignment at home and aftermarket UCAS too.

[Kern Dog]

I think that I've been fooled.
I've used the same alignment shop for my Charger and my truck for years. Each time, I've told them I want as much caster as is possible. With the Charger, I want .75 degree of negative camber and 1/8" toe in.
The last time I had it aligned was February 2023. It was a custom alignment so I had to pay by the hour, to the tune of $160. I got no printout but the man said he got 5.5 degrees of caster on the right and 5.0 on the left. .75 negative camber and 1/8" toe in. I really wanted an actual printout for my records.
The car drove fine but it hasn't had the amount of return to center that I'd expect with this much caster.
Last month I went on a 900 mile car show road trip and once I was back home, I decided to raise the car up an inch to help avoid scraping the exhaust in the future. I know how sensitive these suspensions are to alignment settings with changes in ride height...

Just read the chart. From the zero ride height, it has 1.17 degrees of caster, zero camber and .059 of toe in.
Going up 1 inch changes that to .672 of negative caster, .020 negative camber and .081 of toe in.
It looks like the 1 inch rise, I lost 1/2 a degree of caster. Okay, make a note of that.
I've had some squealing on hard right turns, something that this car has never done. At home, I put a 2 foot level on the front tires. The right still is negative camber as determined by the bubble showing the wheel out of plumb, leaning in at the top.
The left side though....How or why is it leaning out at the top? Positive camber? I never asked for that.
The alignment cam bolts: When I assemble a front end, I always set the rearmost cam bolt all the way IN toward the engine. The front cam bolt is set all the way OUT toward the fender. This gets maximum caster. Right now, it looks like both the left and right rear cam bolts are adjusted to the middle of their range. There is no way that a stock UCA even with offset bushings can get 5 degrees of caster with the cam bolts set this way.
I'm going to align the car myself. Chris Birdsong can do it, so can I. He put out a video on how he did it:



He has no sophisticated equipment, just good old common sense and a few tools.

Before I delve into this, I want to change to aftermarket upper control arms to gain some caster over the stock UCAs with offset bushings.
What do you think of these?

How about these?

Or these:

I like patronizing sponsors of this site . There is a thread though where a member bought UCAs from PST and the front tube of the arm didn't line up with the upper bumpstop. All of these vendors seem to claim more caster. Since I raised the car 1 inch, I want to maximize the amount of caster that I can get. I do NOT want the heim joint units, I don't want stuff that is going to rattle and squeak.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

KD - I'm currently running Firm Feels and have +4.5 deg positive caster on each side. No complaints. I've read for a long time though that stock UCA"s with the offset bushings like you have can be adjusted to run just as well.

I used to run Hotchkis UCA's with the built-in bracket mount that re-locates the front to back UCA mount position and has heim joints. I liked the feel of those slightly better, but ended up swapping them out for the Firm Feel's due to longevity concerns with the heim joints. I feel now that those worries may have been unwarranted. Recent Hotchkis UCA's offer adjustability without removing from the car which is much better than the version I had, but man, those Hotchkis UCA's are very spendy!

I applaud your self-alignment self education and will be following this thread.

I also wonder if your wide front tire width that you run on your car with those 17" Nitto NT05's can affect the feel of return to center due to a wider contact patch (and a sticky one at that).

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

KD - are your front rims 9"? If so, you'll need to consider clearance with the new UCA's and should opt for a narrow V shape. PST offers 2 versions I believe and the narrow V is one of them. Here's some good info from our friends over on the A-bodies forum and they mention some clearance issues with Firm Feels and 9" wide rims, but address it with some minor clearancing:
Tubular upper control arms-would like feedback on different brands

 

[ckessel]

For my 65 I got a pair of arms from FF when I ordered all of the items they had for suspension. I'm thinking of using those on the 67 wagon instead when its update time for that and getting the arms that Peter from BAC has.

 

[Cheapsunglasses]

I believe they’re really all the same, I just used PST because the member discount made them the cheapest option, and I found a good alignment shop that got the alignment exactly to what firm feel and this chart recommends. Of course my previous alignment might not have been the best, but it’s a night and day difference. Everything thing else is factory 68 GTX, and the alignment guy
Said when he put 4 degrees of caster in the camber fell right in to 1 degree

 

[Kern Dog]

The front wheels are 18 x 9" with 4 3/4" back spacing. They clear the stock UCAs just fine. I'll check out what Bergman has.
MY front end has parts from a variety of suppliers.
Borgeson steering box from Bergman.
XV torsion bars.
Tie rod ends and sleeves from PST.
QA 1 sway bar.

 

[Jeff Peterson]

I know some people don't like the bolt connections, but I used the early style SPC's from Bergman, did my own alignment, and amazingly now the steering wheel is centered so I must have done something right lol, ultra adjustable, I'm very happy with them.

 

[RemCharger]

I know some people don't like the bolt connections, but I used the eary style SPC's from Bergman, did my own alignment, and amazingly now the steering wheel is centered so I must have done something right lol, ultra adjustable, I'm very happy with them.

View attachment 1668505

I have done several of these, everyone always ends up happy. Haven't seen any projected failures come to fruition. Don't they use these for track racing without issue?

 

[Kern Dog]

The price of the Hotchkis and Bergman units is part of what turns me away. Also, the lack of bushings is only going to increase road noise. I'm already trying to tone that down a bit.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

I have done several of these, everyone always ends up happy. Haven't seen any projected failures come to fruition. Don't they use these for track racing without issue?

I've always thought the SPC's looked nice and ultra adjustable, but have never tried them. I've also read about some talking about possible expected problems - why would this design be suspect? Many people are using them from what I've read.

 

[RemCharger]

I've always thought the SPC's looked nice and ultra adjustable, but have never tried them. I've also read about some talking about possible expected problems - why would this design be suspect? Many people are using them from what I've read.

#1 reason; they are different from what we are used to.
First response; skepticism.

 

[Kern Dog]

I think that I've been fooled.
I've used the same alignment shop for my Charger and my truck for years. Each time, I've told them I want as much caster as is possible.

Part of my point was that despite my requests, I couldn't guarantee that the numbers that I was told were the numbers that I actually got. How do you know if there is no printout or if you didn't do it yourself and read the gauges?
Last night, I saw these:

These allow you to rest the plate against the front wheels and span a tape measure across the front and the rear to measure toe. For Camber and caster, there is this thing:

This rests against the wheel hub and measures camber and caster. If you watched the video that I linked, you'd see how easy this is for someone with even a basic understanding of these front ends.
Imagine the freedom of knowing that YOU can do front end alignments at home at your own pace. No more making an appointment, towing the car there, waiting for a call back and then possibly being pissed when the car isn't done right.

 

[ckessel]

Don't forget that the "thrust angle" needs to be part of the alignment. One of the benefits of having targets put on all four corners. Not having that squared away is evident when you see a vehicle which appears to be going sideways down the road. Hotchkis and some others make shims to put between the from spring hanger and the body but if you have bent structure, differential etc you need to deal with that first.

 

[Kern Dog]

There was a NASCAR racer that intentionally had several degrees of thrust angle in his car for better cornering!

 

[RemCharger]

View attachment 1668651

There was a NASCAR racer that intentionally had several degrees of thrust angle in his car for better cornering!

It would be cool to see them go in reverse direction! Without mods of course

 

[69_Coronet]

Just wanted to throw in my experience. I have the Firm Feel upper control arms and have been happy with them. I have Torque Thrust II front wheels, 18" diameter and 9" wide, with 0 mm offset and have had no clearance issues.

When I first assembled the new front suspension, I did my own front end alignment with homemade turning plates (heavy plywood with a garbage bags for bearing surfaces). I used an electronic tilt measuring box that I bought locally to measure the camber and caster. It was a fairly slow process as I needed to read about the correct procedures (good info on the Internet), but it drove well when I was done. I took it into a local garage that specialises in classic cars and gave them the specs I wanted (the same as my home alignment was supposed to have given). I wound up with camber = -0.8, caster = 3.25, and toe = 0.12 deg, which was pretty close to my homebrew numbers. Next time around, I am going to add some more caster to aid in centring the steering wheel.

Hope your update goes well. Cheers!

 

[Kern Dog]

Those numbers seem pretty dang good.

 

[Kern Dog]

I’m still waiting for the toe plates and caster/camber gauge.
Today I bought some metal. These will be for turning plates where the tires will sit and be able to steer.

I went to a metal supply shop. They had scrap/cutoffs outside so I grabbed some galvanized stuff. They had some 14” x 46” sections so I grabbed two strips for $44.
I checked, It is slightly thicker than 14 gauge. I cut them to 14x14 square which will accommodate any width tire that I will ever do.

I smeared some wheel bearing grease on one then laid another over it.

I’ve heard of dudes doing the same thing with plastic garbage bags. I could have done that but I went this way instead.

Those that have worked on torsion bar Mopars do know how the front end tends to bind up a bit once you lower it from being raised off the ground. The greased plates here allow you to lower the car onto them and the tire/wheel can slide over, allowing the suspension to settle. I know that I’ve always had to drive the car forward and back to settle the front end. This allows you to just lower it down and get to work.
I wish that I had more to update. I’m waiting on these:

 

[Kern Dog]

If you didn’t watch the video in the opening post, here is a summary of the turning plates in action.
Jigsaw is lifted with a floor Jack.

Turning plates are slipped under the tire.

Now lower the car. Note how the top plate shifted over. Right side first, then left.

See how they shift with the steering wheel turned?

I love learning new stuff.

 

[Don Frelier]

Your tires have seen better days my friend.