Eagletucky, I've got a great solution to your problem... Culbertson's Rods & Customs. See you on Thursday!
Wow, Lots of great info..... Thanks to all for responding..... Miss Belvedere....I didnt know Culbertsons did alignments......Sweet!
BS! My Biscayne has 3" between the frame and pavement (no bags) and I found an old school shop here to do the alignment (Hoover Alignment in Minneapolis, for those in Minne-snow-tah!).
I feel for ya but the new gen can not even make change with a comp, I,m old guy , I had one of my mentors show me how to do it with a string and a torpedo level about 200 cars in 40 yrs only made that one trip to the alinment shop there is lots of info on the net I bought a mag. caster camber gage at a local swap from a ........much younger than my self a few years ago the YOUNG MAN did not even know what he had........its kind like all the tv shows with the guys climbing around underneath cars like monkeys I dont know how I flatbacked it for so many years hoists are it ! well like I said lots on the net do it yer self you will feel better about it
i worked in the frame and alignment business for 40 years. i have aligned everything from a model t to a lamborgini.i would say the problem is they dont want to be bothered with something different from what they do every day.i used to align a lot of local hot rods,and did sometimes have to use manual equipment(magnetic gauges and toe bar) we even cut down a set of legs for our toe bar to fit under low vehicles. the shop no longer does hot rods,they still have the equipment,but no one with the desire to do it. our front end machines are in a pit,so its a straight drive on at floor level. yes i call bs you should be able to find an old school shop that would be willing to do your alignment.
I'm kinda surprised so many people fool with alignment shops at all. They gotta make money, I can appreciate they don't want to fool with something out of the norm, time is money and they did at least give it a shot. They could have just turned a few wrenches, charged you $80 then try to sell you new bushings and whatnot. I spent $90 on a longacre toe in bar? gauge? off ebay. It was too much and I could have made one but *damn* is it convenient! One of those things I rarely use but when I do it's great. I spent $50? on a bubble caster/camber gauge that attaches to the hub. I made turn plates out of some cheap metal squares from Home depot with axle grease between them. Now I do my own alignments and I'm much happier with the service It's not rocket science and I guarantee you care more about getting the alignment perfect than the guy at the shop. Plus you can load up the car with the weight of the driver in the front seat if you want to align like that, or if you want to experiement , or if you're like me and seem to jack around with the front end constantly. Well worth the tool cost to me. Or you can string it. I've seen them do Indy Cars like that, no lasers needed. Good luck whatever you do.
Yup you can do it on a level floor all by your self, I use a caster camber magnetic gage and a set of Beam turntables, as far as the toe goes if you dont have a tram bar you can use a tape measure as long as you scribe the tires. Our shop had a lazer machine, yea it's pretty and it impresses but let me tell you, you'll pump out a lot of bad aligiments before you realize that one of the heads are out of calibration. So back to basics we went, never had another come back. Just one mans opinion
I am calling bs! As long as the the fenders allow enough room for the heads to mount to the wheels, my Hunter machine can do it. As stated earlier, it reads from the front and not side to side. The only way I see it not working is if the heads are not able to mount to the wheels from fender interference. On the older machines, the front heads had lasers the would be blocked by fenders if too low or by the tires themselves if you had a large enough tire.
I would say he just didn't want to do it. Stock S10 chassis, come on! How hard can it be, tons of them on the road.
For my $80 they ought to adjust the eccentrics and shim the a arms as well as toe in. I don't believe most places are going to work that hard for $80, when they can knock out strut FWD cars wayyyy faster. I'd bet a lotta guys get the toe in set and that's their 'alignment'. That's why they still have freeway speed dartiness or whatever issue after they paid their money and are told its 'in spec'. I can't be the only one that's had his car aligned and its worse than before I took it in. You can do toe In a million ways. I've used a broomstick before and it was fine. The longacre tool just makes it a cinch.
Damn I wish you were near my town! There is a place here in town called Chapmans, I called them and asked them for you and they confirmed in the old man's words "bunch of youngstas that don't know what in the hell their doing" he said he could align anything with his tools! Ole school shop, super cool! Sam
Up until a few years ago, the sensors had too "see" each other, side to side, front to back. It ain't B.S. If ANYTHING is in the way, the tech won't be able to compensate and get measurements. Tons of these machines are still in use. Now, the newer machines using photolithography($5 word for cameras taking pictures of the sensor heads) see the sensors front to back and the front sensors no longer have to "see" each other side to side-those with the current technology equipment are the shops you need to find. That being said, many lowered cars will get hung up on the rack ramps and cause some potentially serious damage to anything hanging low. SO now we have a car we can't make money on, and we owe money for anything damaged. All it takes is one of those to make any tech skeptical of pulling one on the rack. Plus, you can hardly ever get the jack under the front suspension to even raise the car while it's on the rack. It ends up taking over twice as long to even attempt to get the car up, still not knowing if the car can even be aligned. I have two 10 ft 2X10 ramps to get anything lowered up on the rack, and I have to drag another guy off his job to watch and make sure nothing is going to drag getting on the rack. So if it ends up costing money instead of making it, would you do that for your job? You can't just take it to any Joe blow shop. Gotta find one that's into that kind of stuff. Gee, guess what I do for a living? I only cater to those because I still like doing it, and if there's a problem, I drag you out there to show you why. So, I end up not making jack squat for what I did. I'll spend sometimes several HOURS doing an alignment for a guy and his pride and joy to make $79.99. Guess I need to start charging an hourly rate. Sorry for the long winded rant. So go get yourselves some vinyl tiles to substitute for turnplates, go buy that handheld camber/caster gauge, and get under there with that tape measure and do it at home! If it drives right and doesn't wear the tires, YOU DID IT! JM$.02
I've run into this also. They sent me to an old man down the street that does all that "old school" stuff. Best thing that could have possibly happened to the situation. This old man was 80 yrs old, told me that he had 15 years experience lining up front ends when the G Damn car was brand new! He was damned near insulted when I asked him "if" he could do it. He lined up my front end with a car lift, lawn chair, flash light, cigar, and hand tools. Coolest thing ever!
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