Quick-n-dirty toe in alignment after tierod replacement

[cgrey8]

Does anybody have any good creative methods of how to do a toe in alignment? Now that my tie rods have been replaced, the alignment is shot to hell. I got the tires to where they are visually straight. I took a long bar and held it up against the tire extending forward. I was hoping that I could see an angle better with the bar and I did, but without a bar on each tire, I think I may still have the tires toe'd in. Once I get the truck down off jack stands and have all the weight back in the truck, I'll reassess it.

I'm just wondering if there are any decent home-made rigs that will do a decent toe in alignment until I can get it to a shop to get the alignment done.

Or better yet, are there some techniques that do so well I won't need to take it in?

[cgrey8]

Doing a little googling around, it seems there are quite a few home made kits people have come up with and affordable prefabbed kits. The most interesting one I found is this one:
eBay>QuickTrick Classic Toe Kit

The basis of this kit is two brackets that mount on the side of both front tires. Then using two measuring tapes, you compare the length between the front arms of the brackets and the length between the rear.

When both are equal, you have zero "effective" toe between the front steering tires.

What I can't figure out is how you confirm that zero toe is being attained with the steering wheel perfectly straight using this kit. Without doing a compare of the toe relative to the rear tires, you don't really know if zero toe is being attained with the steering wheel perfectly straight or not even if you do the alignment procedure with the steering wheel held center. One wheel could be 1/4" positive and the other 1/4" negative with the steering wheel straight. That's effectively zero toe, but would require that the steering wheel turn off-center for the vehicle to track center going down the road. To get a center track with the steering wheel also centered, you need to have some reference relative to the rear tires and I'm not seeing that with this kit...or for that matter with any of the affordable DIY toe in alignment kits.

I guess there has to be some tradeoff for this being a cheap setup. But even with this limitation, I'm amazed at the simplicity of this approach.

[MalcolmV8]

Honestly I just eye ball it from about 10 or 15 feet in front of the car and dial it in close enough and then drive to a tire shop and have it done right. Tires are just to expensive to figure out whoops my alignment didn't work

[plowboy34]

I know you by no means need this anymore but what I do is take a screwdriver and get myself set where I can be as steady as possible then I have someone spin the tire while I make a scribe in it all the way around. I do both tires then use a tape measure and measure in front and in back of tires at the lines. I do this just to get them close then as Malcolm said I then take it to the alignment shop.

Also another way I have done it is stretch a string from the rear of the rear tire to the front of the front tire and I set them to where all four sidewalls are just touching the string then I head to the alignment shop. Although you cannot do this as you replaced your 7.5 with an 8.8 which is just a tad wider so this option will not work for you, just thought I would throw that out there.

[cgrey8]

Yeah the bar setup above got me to thinking, I could just take angle-iron and bungee it to the tires. Then use two tape measures to get the angle iron sticking out in front of the tires equal in distance than the part of the angle iron sticking out the back of the tire. The unfortunately doesn't take into account differences in tire surface, but it's the quick-n-dirty needed just to get it to drive around the neighborhood before taking it to the alignment shop.

The kit listed above is really a better way to go since it references off the rim, not off the rubber tire which can flex. Obviously you could make something more complex, but by the time you started getting fancy, the time you spend would be greater than the cost of just buying that kit. When I was in school, my time was pretty cheap. But today, time in the garage is harder to come by and takes away from other things.

And the 331 isn't running so well right now. It threw a rod and buggered up a rocker in the process. More on that, including pictures, here:
EECTuning.org>331's in and running, but...

[MalcolmV8]

whoo had me going there buddy lol. You had me worried there when you said it threw a rod. I figured oh damn motor's hosed but then read over that thread and you mean a pushrod jumped out. OK not so bad When someone says they "threw a rod" it means a connecting rod snapped and is usually through the side of the block.

[Dave]

Me too! Just got done reading that info at other site and thought the worst. That does suck thou after all the care you have taken. Be following up on what you find.
Dave

[cgrey8]

Yeah pushrod, not connecting rod. It wasn't that bad. No holes in the side of the block or oil pan. It hasn't been reved nearly that high yet.

[plowboy34]

I initially thought connecting rod too....thought what a major bummer