A slight departure....
The experiences I had with the difference in numbers I got from the alignment shop versus the numbers that I measured with the DIY stuff has me curious.
My initial thoughts regarding the shop guy told me one set of numbers and I arrived at a different set:
Why? Was it intentional on his part to lie?
There is surely the possibility of a slight error in his equipment and or mine so getting the exact same numbers from two methods may not be likely.
I still think that I was told what they thought that I wanted to hear and that they figured I'd never find out.
With that in mind, I went a step further today.
FBBO member Rich, AKA CoronetDarter has this '68 Dart:
It is a well sorted car. Manual steering, .92 t bars, Bilstein shocks, offset bushings in the UCAs and PST solid tie rod sleeves.
His shop aligned the car in 2018 and he had the printout. I'm going off of memory so my numbers may not be exact but I thought I read less than 1/2 degree of negative camber on the right with about 1.6 degrees of caster. The left was almost at zero camber and 1.4 degrees of caster. I knew that we could do better than that so I was over at his place with my stuff to see what could be done.
First off, the right side camber showed to be 1 1/4 degrees negative, not 1/2 degree. The caster measured either 2 1/2 degrees or 2 1/4, I don't recall. The left side had 1/2 degree negative camber and similar caster to the right at 2 1/4 degrees. In this instance, the numbers measured were actually better than what was on the printout.
On a test drive, the steering wheel spun
back to center quicker than I'd expect for only 2+ degrees of caster. Steering effort is good, though the slower ratio of the manual takes more degrees of rotation to make the turn than what I'm used to driving. The car tracks straight. NO wandering, no following the creases and cracks in the road. It felt safe, stable and predictable. It has no bad manners.
Rich has considered upgrades like the tubular arms that give more caster, heim joint strut rods, bigger torsion bars and a sway bar.
I think that with the street racer vibe the car has, it is set up just right as it sits.
Sure, you could spend the money on those parts to bring it to the next level of handling but as it sits, it has no bad habits and it handles quite well. I saw very little body lean despite having no sway bar.
My point though is.....
Maybe the discrepancy in the numbers the shop reports versus what I measure can be any one of several things.
Operator errors. Given that I only spent $140 on this gauge, I'm guessing that I'm more likely to be at fault though I've been checking and getting the same results over and over.
Faulty equipment. If the shop guys are used to
set the toe and go, maybe caster and camber aren't attended to as much as they should be?
Lies from the shop. They might be figuring that the car owners would never find out the truth.
Degradation of the car's bushings over time, leading to changing numbers. Usually, as the bushings wear, the camber goes negative.
