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914World.com _ 914World Garage _ teener alginment

Posted by: sk8kat1 Mar 31 2006, 02:22 PM

I am still tring to find an alginment closer to home .. but may have to drive better than an hour to the place I found ...

There is a porsche dealer here in rockford .. do you think that they would doa good job or should I stay away ?

Posted by: rhodyguy Mar 31 2006, 02:29 PM

i drove the better part 60 miles to have my alignment done. oh, it was 3 hours to drive home due to the afternoon commute.

k

Posted by: Aaron Cox Mar 31 2006, 02:31 PM

they will charge you a TON!!!

find a porsche place... (not a dealer) or ask around at local PCA

Posted by: r_towle Mar 31 2006, 02:33 PM

I would trust a dealer, if they have a machine....

The big question, will they do it?
Even most P-car shops wont do it...

You need to go to an expert 914 guy if you want to be treated fairly...if its less that 100 miles...have a nice ride.

Rich

Posted by: Mueller Mar 31 2006, 02:33 PM

have you called and asked them if they'd even "touch" the car??

a lot of dealers refuse to work on old cars....

Posted by: rhodyguy Mar 31 2006, 02:37 PM

my guess would be that the P-dealer will just set things up to us spec. i doubt they will be into the different options an "experienced" shop may be able to provide you with. take the drive.

k

Posted by: ArtechnikA Mar 31 2006, 02:52 PM

buy four jackstands (you have a 914 - you'll need them sooner or later anyway) a spool of kite string, and a machinist's rule. a really level place is a big help and yes, 1/8" (the thickness of your average homestore flooring tile) is close enough to level, which is why i have that big stack of them in my garage...

most wear is due to toe, which you can measure easily enough. camber is not much harder.

there's no reason to stress...

Posted by: aircooledboy Mar 31 2006, 02:56 PM

RUN AWAY RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bud, I wouldn't trust those douchebags at Napelton's to align the training wheels on my kid's bike.

If I told you 1/10th of the horror stories I know about that place, I'd need 2 hours, and you'd need a clean pair of drawers or two.

I'd don't have a good answer, but I do know Autowerks ain't it.

Posted by: rhodyguy Mar 31 2006, 03:34 PM

now that's what i call a REFERAL!!! keep looking i guess.

k

Posted by: brp914 Mar 31 2006, 04:03 PM

Anyone tried Smartstrings (smart racing products)? Is it worth the price, or is it easy to rig up something? Some alignment shops have these pivot-like things mounted in the floor that your wheels rest on. When adjustments are made, the wheel is able to move, rather than preload the tire. I guess thats what they are for. Are these really necessary? Know where to get them?

Posted by: Aaron Cox Mar 31 2006, 04:06 PM

harbor freight has had the pivoting tire pads....

Posted by: itsa914 Mar 31 2006, 04:21 PM

Mike call Brad Mayeur 309-694-1797, yes he is more that 1 hour away from you but he knows 914. I drove 3 hours one way to have him and Michael lower, corner balance and align my car for Axing.

And to all you others yes I know I could do it myself, but I would rather have this done by someone that knows exactly what he is doing and doesn't take all winter to do it, unlike me that woudl still have it all F'd up.

Posted by: Tom Mar 31 2006, 04:44 PM

Kevin,
Where did you drive to for that alignment? I'm going to need one when I get the red car finished. Putting my nice new trailing arms from Eric on this weekend.
Thanks,
Tom

Posted by: Cap'n Krusty Mar 31 2006, 04:49 PM

Finding a dealer with even ONE employee around that was a tech when these cars were being serviced by dealers is nearly impossible. Might run into questions like "Where1s the motor". Look for a good alignment shop that has experienced techs and understands the theory and practice of alignments. The Cap'n

Posted by: lapuwali Mar 31 2006, 05:30 PM

For measuring toe, you don't even need the string or the jackstands.

Find a reasonably level spot where you can move the car back and forth about half a car length. Park with the wheels pretty much straight ahead. Push a straight pin into the tread of each front tire pointing forwards. Measure between the pins with a tape measure. Roll the car backwards until the pins point straight back. Measure again. The difference is the toe. You'll probably have to do the measuring with the pins slightly below the centerline, to clear the suspension.

Aim for about 1/16-1/8 of toe-in (shorter at the front than the rear). You also want a bit of toe-in at the rear.

The typical tolerance for these measurements is +/- 1mm (1/32" more or less), which is actually easier to measure with a ruler than most people think.

You can do camber with a plumb bob, a level, a ruler, and a bit of trig. Convert the angle in degrees to fractions of an inch for a 15" wheel once, and you can use that table and a ruler the rest of the time. On a street car, aim for about 0.5 degrees of camber, and try to get both to be the same as much as you can. Again, the tolerance here is big enough you can measure it with a ruler and still be OK.

Caster is pretty hard to do. If you spring for one of the camber gauges (Longacre makes a fairly affordable one), you can do caster with that, too.

Posted by: ArtechnikA Mar 31 2006, 06:03 PM

QUOTE (lapuwali @ Mar 31 2006, 07:30 PM)
For measuring toe, you don't even need the string or the jackstands.

just for completeness -- this method measures only "total toe" -- or difference between right and left. which is good, as far as it goes - but it won't tell you if both sides are too far to one side.

so there's a bit of ceremony to "doing it right" that involves making sure the rack is in the center, and the wheel is straight.

the advantage to using the "external frame of reference" the string gives you is that you can tell which of the four wheels (or what combination thereof) isn't straight.

it's possible to have both front wheels cocked a bit to one side, both rear wheels a bit to the other side, and while the car may track straight, it'll be fighting itself and won't be aligned with the road.

that said - i've used a "total toe" gauge (a BIG caliper) a lot of times, and if you have good confidence in the other end ) or are willing to let any discrepancies there slide while you concentrate on the other end) this method works just fine.

i'll be doing a driveway string alignment to the Subie is a couple weeks -- when all the brake and suspension upgrade pieces get here...

Posted by: r_towle Mar 31 2006, 06:07 PM

Just so I know I have been doing it right...

I set up the strings, level with the centerline of the wheel.
I measure and set them so that when the front wheel is straight, the strings are parallel to each other, and I measure from the center of the wheel cap so that each string is the same distance from the center cap of the wheel...

The rest I know...

Does that soung right, or am I making it to hard.

rich

Posted by: lapuwali Mar 31 2006, 06:30 PM

On the rear, the centering argument has merit. On the front, it doesn't, unless the car has a lot of Ackermann built into it, and you have the steering quite well off center. Get the steering wheel reasonably centered, and you're fine. If you want to be anal about it, measure it three times, once with the steering centered (as well as you can), once with the wheel to the left about 1/4 turn, and again with the wheel to the right 1/4 turn. The average of these three will be the toe within any useful tolerance.

At the back, you're somewhat at the mercy of whomever set the rear toe last time. Doing it with strings is more accurate, but it's pretty hard to get the strings parallel both to each other and the centerline of the track (note: not the centerline of the car, but the center between the wheel centerlines, which is often different, esp. on a 914).

A way to do this with jackstands and strings is to line up two strings that are parallel with each rear wheel (easy to do with a ruler) which also extend behind the car a few feet. Now, line up another string that's 90d from the left hand string over to the right hand string. If the angle at the right hand string and this transverse string is also 90d, you have zero rear toe, and they're even, and you can stop (unless you want some toe-in).

If it's less than 90 degrees, you have toe-in. If it's greater than 90 degrees, you have toe-out. Now, place another string at 90d from the right hand string over to the left-hand string. Measure from where the strings cross to each side string. If it's the same on each side, the wheels are evenly adjusted. If the center is shifted to the left, the left hand tire is toe'd in more than the right hand tire. If the center is shifted to the right, the right hand tire is toe'd in more than the left hand tire.

The farther back from the car you can extend the side strings, the easier it will be to measure the difference in side-to-side differences.

Posted by: Gint Mar 31 2006, 07:17 PM

Talk to the local PCA or SCCA groups and ask them who they use for alinments. If you ask enough of them, you'll probably find one shop come to the top of the list more often than all of the others. That's what I did. Around here it's Tire Source in Boulder. I told the alignment guy (can't remember his name, Scott?) I wanted a street/AutoX combo setup. He took one look at me (probably guessing my weight), and went to align the 914. A couple of hours later he had me sit in the passenger seat and I watched the gauges zero out after I sat down. I'm sold.