Alignment at home and aftermarket UCAS too.

[Ray70Chrg]

Here's my take from All the information that I read from this site. When I recently rebuilt the front suspension, I put in the eccentric bushings and set them for maximum caster and my intention is to not adjust them ever again. I now have all the caster that is available from the oem UCA's. I don't even care what the amount of positive caster I have because there is no more. Also, I shimmed the lower ball joints .080" on each side based on what I've read on site. I read @KD's post that he used .125 shim and that may give 2* of adjustment. After putting everything back together with the standard ride height and all the torque specs done with the wheels carrying the weight I drove several times for a total of about 40-50 miles. Did not like the handling as the car pulled to the right. I know the caster is maxed, so time to look at the camber adjustment. like so many others, I have a red-neck tool set up using a 2' level. I have gone to great lengths to convert the bubble indicator and the 2 markings, and based on its 2 ft. length, to get an equivalent degree value. The left wheel, luckily, came in at the 1st mark which indicated a -.3 degrees. The right wheel was off the bubble on the positive side. WTF is this. What I realized, using the 2' level, is I only had to move the bottom of the level out about a 1/4 inch to get the bobble back to the center. So, I disconnected the lower ball joint and added 2 more .08 shims. Put it all together again and road tested about 10 miles. Plenty of speed bumps and drainage trenches in my development to work the suspension. Latest readings on camber is
left wheel: -.6 degrees
right wheel: -.3 degrees
I watched the video last night that @KD provided and it talked about ride height changing slightly just by moving the car around a little bit. When ride height changes so does Camber and caster.
Next, I'm going to order those Toe Plates to see if I can check and adjust toe-in. I didn't mention that after addressing the right wheel with added shims the handling is back to normal.
Thanks to all who have contributed info on this subject. Attached is pic of my camber gauge.

 

[Kern Dog]

I do not have any direct experience with those spacer washers that fit between the lower ball joints and steering knuckles. I’ve read about them and have been curious about using them but have yet to give them a try.
In theory, cranking that rear UCA cam bolt IN and the front OUT should result in only slight negative camber. If you want more, the spacers would help. Thickness will determine how much neg camber you’ll get. Maybe I’ll get a wild hair and do some experiments to find out. Of course, I’ll be back here to report what I find.

 

[Kern Dog]

Back in 2022, I had a thread here asking other members about their ride height.

What is your ride height?

I was very clear that I knew that there was a factory approved procedure for determining the correct ride height but that I wanted to know what other members had measured on their cars using the same method that I did....a tape measure like so:

In that thread, a few members were stubborn about sticking to the factory way. That is fine for cars that are stock.
Nothing that I own stays stock. I'm talking bigger torsion bars, better shocks, bushings, bigger sway bars, bigger wheels and tires with shorter sidewalls, etc.

Back on point:
I raised the car up an inch a few weeks ago. I removed the 1" lowering blocks I had out back...

I then cranked up the torsion bar bolts a bit to get 1 inch more up front.

Left front:

Right front:

Left rear:

Right rear:

I admit, the height that I'm at is partly for appearance. I like the car to sit where the tops of the tires are at least at the top of the wheel arches or tucked up inside a bit. What I'm looking for here is consistency. Look at the body line that runs down the middle of any 68, 69 or 70 Charger. The front wheel arch seems to be closer to that body line than the rear wheel arch is. All else being correct, that would indicate that the rear wheel arch is lower than the front. I could probably confirm this by running a string line across the rocker panel and measure up from that.

 

[Kern Dog]

Here we go.

I may have never paid as much attention to this as you might have. Note the small distance from the top of the wheel arch to the body line:

Maybe an inch? 1 1/2" ?

Now the rear...

That looks at least 2" to 2 1/2" to me. I'll measure tomorrow to confirm. What this means is that in theory, you could have measurements about an inch lower up front and with equal height tires, the reveal at the top of the tires front to rear can match.

 

[Black_Sheep]

Here’s my print out after installing QA1 tubular upper control arms. The improvement was pretty dramatic…

 

[Kern Dog]

Wow...you started out with a LOT of negative camber!

 

[Black_Sheep]

Wow...you started out with a LOT of negative camber!

That was from just eyeballing it after putting the front end back together. I basically got the wheels pointed in the same direction for the short drive to the alignment shop. Even with the toe that whacked out it wasn’t horrible to drive…

 

[Ray70Chrg]

I do not have any direct experience with those spacer washers that fit between the lower ball joints and steering knuckles. I’ve read about them and have been curious about using them but have yet to give them a try.
In theory, cranking that rear UCA cam bolt IN and the front OUT should result in only slight negative camber. If you want more, the spacers would help. Thickness will determine how much neg camber you’ll get. Maybe I’ll get a wild hair and do some experiments to find out. Of course, I’ll be back here to report what I find.

The way I see it is using the shims separates the interaction of the two adjustments and now the caster doesn't have to be diminished in order to get proper camber. I'm new to all of this mopar alignment problems and it seems to me many have difficulty getting this right, in addition to todays mechanics that won't even touch this during an alignment. Having the ability to adjust these independently seems like a better choice.

 

[Black_Sheep]

With the factory caster setting I had to drive the car all of the time, now with the additional caster I just have to hold the wheel. It really transformed how it drives, like a totally different car…

 

[Kern Dog]

The way I see it is using the shims separates the interaction of the two adjustments and now the caster doesn't have to be diminished in order to get proper camber. I'm new to all of this mopar alignment problems and it seems to me many have difficulty getting this right, in addition to todays mechanics that won't even touch this during an alignment. Having the ability to adjust these independently seems like a better choice.

I agree. Having more tricks to get the numbers you want is a good thing. The ball joint spacers has been mentioned before...I saw a Mopar Action article from many years ago where a steel plate was used there.

 

[Ray70Chrg]

I agree. Having more tricks to get the numbers you want is a good thing. The ball joint spacers has been mentioned before...I saw a Mopar Action article from many years ago where a steel plate was used there.

I found out about using the spacers from one you posted a couple years ago. That's what gave me the idea to look into this when I rebuilt the from end.

 

[Kern Dog]

Thank you for mentioning that. I am happy to know that it worked out for you.

I went ahead and ordered these:

They are due in soon.

 

[68 Sport Satellite]

Thank you for mentioning that. I am happy to know that it worked out for you.

I went ahead and ordered these:

View attachment 1671160

They are due in soon.

Were there any factors that encouraged you to choose the QA1's over Firm Feel or the PST narrow V's?

 

[Kern Dog]

The three tubular ones that I listed in the first post were all comparable in price and quality. I only chose QA 1 because of name recognition. I have a QA 1 front sway bar. Chris Birdsong likes their products. There is a member here that says he was sponsored by them and given free products to test and report on. They were immediately available so I figured I'd give them a try.
I am toying with the idea of taking this project a bit further than I had originally planned.
With the tubular UCAs coming in, of course I'll align the car with them in place but....
I might map the alignment curves to serve as a reference for others to use in the future.
The opening post had a chart made by Bill Rielly of RMS. Now, I have zero interest in those coil over suspension kits but he did us torsion bar guys a favor by mapping the curves of the A disc spindle and the B version.
I want to do a similar thing but with my own basic, simple tools.
I have some stock UCAs with stock bushings. The UCAs in the car have the Moog offset bushings and the QA 1 are designed for 3 degrees more caster. I want to map the curves of all three setups.

 

[kreauto]

Kern Dog What are you using to measure the degrees out and the same degrees in to check caster. I have turn tables that double as toe plates but are marked in degrees both directions. Mine are old Snap On’s I kept for myself when I quit doing alignments at my shop. The main reason I quit doing them was everything went to struts which could only adjust camber on the first ones later nothing was adjustable. However shops still wanted to charge for a full alignment when all they did was check or set toe. In my opinion of course I ask my customers why they think they need their car aligned. Very rarely will alignment fix their issue, of course unless its toe in or out related. When I measure caster I turn the wheel out 20 degrees zero my caster bubble then in 20 degrees and read the center of the bubble for your caster. If you have any questions PM me. I’m very much still learning forums but like to help people.View attachment 1671571

 

[kreauto]

I said I’m learning this picture didn’t show up the first time.

 

[Kern Dog]

I'm in the learning stages here. I will be confused a bit and make mistakes along the way so bear with me.
I'm waiting on stuff to come in. Yesterday, I got this:

It came in a nice case.

It is heavy.

It has instructions.

 

[Kern Dog]

What are you using to measure the degrees out and the same degrees in to check caster. I have turn tables that double as toe plates but are marked in degrees both directions. When I measure caster I turn the wheel out 20 degrees zero my caster bubble then in 20 degrees and read the center of the bubble for your caster. If you have any questions PM me. I’m very much still learning forums but like to help people.View attachment 1671571

Thank you for commenting.
This gauge states to check at 20 degrees but I don't know yet how I'll determine that. I instinctively thought I'd check at full lock left and right.

 

[kreauto]

That’s pretty neat. You should be able to just use your magnetic gauge to get it parallel to body both ways and your set. Like the directions say as long as you are equal both ways your caster reading will be accurate. Don’t forget to use something to lock the front wheels from turning. I also use my eye sight to look down the four tire edges when your tire is back to straight ahead. If they have different offsets thats fine just remember the front tire edges should be parallel to the rears during the alinement. When you set the toe in, is when the rear of front tire will become slightly out of parallel. I know you didn’t want the heim ends on yours. I’m next door to RMS so I put 4 sets of his on so far on B bodies. Reason I like his are because I can adjust (it’s a pain to unbolt each time) the heim ends in and out to get max caster. My 70 Cuda has frame damage and a scab smacked on it behind the left front wheel. It was damn scary to drive with manual steering. RMS guaranteed me his control arms would give me the caster back with camber. I got 5 degrees positive caster and 1/4 degree positive camber. I couldn’t believe what that did to that car enough to make it driveable. Not saying his are better than others just that it fixed my Cuda so I could drive it. On these classic its nice now that there are options to correct the caster and not sacrifice camber or vice versa.

 

[Jeff Peterson]

The "V" at the end is slanted 20 degrees, you just turn the wheel till it lines up parallel with the side of your car, when it is, thats 20 degrees of turn