Suspension woes! Just getting upset at this point.

[Kern Dog]

Jigsaw was "aligned" by me with a 24" builders level and a tape measure.

As hack as that sounds, this car tracks as straight as the red car that has always been professionally aligned.
To my credit, everything has been changed. Lower control arm bushings, offset uppers, ball joints, strut rod bushings, (The only urethane in the system) But with "seasoned" tie rod ends. Am I lucky?

 

[Purepony]

It sounds like you're over thinking all this. Set the toe yourself with a tape measure, the camber looks fine, make sure everything is tight, and go for a little drive. You won't just spin off the road. If the car drives reasonably ok, then you're fine to drive to an alignment shop.

But if the alignment shop tries to tune the caster n camber won’t that bring me back to the current state ?

 

[66 Sat]

But if the alignment shop tries to tune the caster n camber won’t that bring me back to the current state ?

I don't know what you mean.
The goal is for the car to drive right, the specs to get to that point are just a means to an end.
These cars can be out by fractions of inches in the frame rails, so a "perfect" theoretical alignment might not actually feel right.
I don't know what my specifications are because I did it myself. I measured the front and rear of the tires and made the front maybe 2mm (I work mostly in metric) less than the rear. I tried to get some negative camber and I did on one side, but the other side is neutral. The caster I'm unsure of, I set the camber bolts as I'd read on here, back ones out, front ones in, or whatever I read at the time - it was 5 years ago.
The car drove great.
A few years later I added some thick washers to the spindles after reading a post from Kern Dog which got me a bit more negative camber, but that's been it.
The car drives perfectly, steering centers as it should, tracks straight hands off the wheel and has been driven up to 100 mph on the track with no wandering.
These are not precision built cars in the suspension department. They certainly aren't "blueprinted" like the engines that often go in them.
Just have a play around and see what results you get. You can't really break anything.

 

[Kern Dog]

It has been mentioned that for the enlightened members that know how beneficial the some amount of negative camber can be, as they try to get more caster, they lose a little of the negative camber. This is because they move the front alignment cam OUT which increases caster but eats away at the camber.
One fix is these:

These spacers/washers fit between the ball joint/steering arm and the spindle. This tilts the bottom out, the amount of degrees depends on the thickness of the material used. The .120" washers from AR Engineering was supposed to equate to 2 degrees according to the description in his ad at Mancini Racing. Two degrees of negative camber is too much for the street but keep in mind, this allows for adjustment of the UCA cams to get maximum caster which...as you'll recall, often comes at the cost of some negative camber. If you start with 2 degrees and lose 1 getting to 5 or more degrees of caster, that is an excellent tradeoff.
This is all speculation in terms of exact specs. These spacers may be too thick or not thick enough. These are hardened steel to prevent distortion under load. Trying different thicknesses may get you right where you want to be.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

I'm glad the two posts above mine brought up spacing the lower ball joint... I almost added that yesterday but didn't want to further complicate the info being provided

 

[Purepony]

The strut rods obviously need to be the same length, Some guys use urethane strut rod bushings one of the problems with that is often they are thicker than the rubber strut rod bushings & they don't compress so if you have a thicker bushing it will push the outboard end of the LCA further rearward... That translates into killing caster...

The strut rods aren't as critical as the upper & lower control arm bushing hardware They swivel more than rotate so you don't bind and twist the bushings....

Here’s one side
Do you see anything I don’t see ?

I see some distortion in the bushings for the strut rod

The bushings on the upper and lower seem good. The top are polyurethane

 

[1 Wild R/T]

Those lower bushings don't look very old... Strut rods look normal... No sway bar mounts? I'd probably either add them or swap to arms with them...

 

[Kern Dog]

Are those lower bushings urethane? There seems like a lot of air gap in there:

 

[1 Wild R/T]

Are those lower bushings urethane? There seems like a lot of air gap in there:

View attachment 1494357

I think that's just the way the bushing was molded, it rolls into the sleeve.. I'm thinking what ever angle around that pin it'll look like that.... Key word, think

 

[Purepony]

Those lower bushings don't look very old... Strut rods look normal... No sway bar mounts? I'd probably either add them or swap to arms with them...

I remove the other side and this is what I found and the lower bushing looks bad too. I’ll post a picture of it tomorrow.

 

[Purepony]

Thanks guys I’ll pull some more pictures tomorrow. I think one of the bushings in the other arm is shot.

 

[Grant McLeod]

Toe and camber affect tire wear
Caster can only be measured with an align machine and unless you spend all your time traveling mountain switch backs does not cause tire wear, my Coronet has -1 degree caster my 2012 SRT has 10 degrees. Caster can cause shimmy, wander, and poor steering returnability. Find some old guy that understands steering geometry

 

[OKDart]

Toe and camber affect tire wear
Caster can only be measured with an align machine and unless you spend all your time traveling mountain switch backs does not cause tire wear, my Coronet has -1 degree caster my 2012 SRT has 10 degrees. Caster can cause shimmy, wander, and poor steering returnability. Find some old guy that understands steering geometry

View attachment 1494496

I have this tool, it will measure caster, but I’ve only used it for camber so far. Directions make it seem your caster measurement won’t be accurate unless your precise with the procedure.

Longacre Racing Products 52-78295 Longacre Digital Caster Camber Gauges | Summit Racing

 

[T Brashears]

Rebuilt the front end of the 65 Coronet recently. One strut was bent. I used the poly bushings in the lower,when I assembled the left side the strut pushed the control arm back on the the shaft quarter inch. after fighting with strut bushings I bought QA adjustable struts And adjusted for no preload on the lower arm.After some eyeballing and a level I put two hardened washers between the lower ball joints and knuckle and offset upper bushings in 180 apart. I’m fortunate to have a friend with an alignment machine at work. I was able to get .3 degrees negative camber and
.8 positive caster. Manual steering car and my shoulders are not good. Gets power steering and a 383 over the winter,I’ll get some more caster in there after that.It’s old,been worked on and wrecked at some point.

 

[lilcuda]

Jigsaw was "aligned" by me with a 24" builders level and a tape measure.

View attachment 1493960

View attachment 1493961

As hack as that sounds, this car tracks as straight as the red car that has always been professionally aligned.
To my credit, everything has been changed. Lower control arm bushings, offset uppers, ball joints, strut rod bushings, (The only urethane in the system) But with "seasoned" tie rod ends. Am I lucky?

I did the same thing when I rebuilt the front of my 66 Barracuda many years ago. My garage floor alignment drove pretty well. I then took it to the local alignment shop that had experience with Mopars. After he was done with it, it drove terribly. I sold it before I fixed it.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

I did the same thing when I rebuilt the front of my 66 Barracuda many years ago. My garage floor alignment drove pretty well. I then took it to the local alignment shop that had experience with Mopars. After he was done with it, it drove terribly. I sold it before I fixed it.

That sucks....... "Had experience with Mopars"??? Sounds more like "Had experience screwing up Mopars" These cars can drive so well with a few minor tweaks... And yet when you set them up wrong they drive terribly... There's a reason I've used and recommended the same alignment guy for over thirty years...

 

[lilcuda]

That sucks....... "Had experience with Mopars"??? Sounds more like "Had experience screwing up Mopars" These cars can drive so well with a few minor tweaks... And yet when you set them up wrong they drive terribly... There's a reason I've used and recommended the same alignment guy for over thirty years...

Well, a friend of mine had good luck with the guy on his Barracuda. I don't know what the deal was with my car. I was gonna fix it myself, but ended up getting too wrapped up in moving, then by then time I got settled in my new place, another car came along that interested me, so I sold the Barracuda.

 

[autoxcuda]

I know there’s not a lot of shops, willing to work on a 50 year old car let alone a mopar.

I used to take the car to Julius. He’s the one that put the hemi torsion bars in and did a few other things but he’s closed now.

I had gone to a place to do alignment, but they didn’t do anything about the camber or caster

I called a place called Alabama suspension, which is supposed to be pretty good, but nobody answered all day

Julius took his alignments to Marlo's Frame and Alignment.

 

[autoxcuda]

I have this tool, it will measure caster, but I’ve only used it for camber so far. Directions make it seem your caster measurement won’t be accurate unless your precise with the procedure.

Longacre Racing Products 52-78295 Longacre Digital Caster Camber Gauges | Summit Racing

View attachment 1494500

I have that computer tool also. I've done a few alignments with it.

That caster measurement process always gets me confused. It's wonky to follow. IMHO, too much fancy computer stuff.

I'd like to just run the old bubble type caster setup where you can physically see what's going on.

I got the computer one because I thought I'd be getting a dual purpose tool by getting a neat computer level out of the deal... But I've never used the level by itself (I don't do much carpentry/woodwork)

 

[Purepony]

Julius took his alignments to Marlo's Frame and Alignment.

Thank you that’s very helpful. I’ll look them up on Monday and if it’s still open I’ll take it in after I get the new pivot bolts