Technical 1932 Alignment

Proper way to measure and adjust front alignment on a '32?
Big tires in the rear, smaller in the front.
Thanks!

 

Some of the alignment may require bending the axle. My advice would be to find a shop that has the equipment an let them do the entire job. Look for old shops that work on trucks.

Charlie Stephens

 

You can set caster and toe in the garage. Angle gauge on the spindle gives you caster, some careful reference marks on the tires get ya toe. PM me for the details if you'd like. 9 outta 10 the camber in the axle is fine.

 

Use 1/8th" toe in also.

 

The only adjustment for alignment was toe-in of the front wheels and Ford specified it as 3/32". HRP

 

Caster can be adjusted by dropping or raising the wishbone in the back or by bending the wishbones to get more tilt on the axle or by bending the axle. I run 7.50x16's on the rear and 6.00x16 on the front with a stock 32 setup (heavy axle, stock wishbone, and stock frame) and my stock caster is fine.

CAMBER is the in or out at the top of the tire measurement. I sent my axle to Joe Casto in OK ( 580-268-3704 ) ( Sid Dropple ( 405-416-3080 ) can also do it). Joe wanted my spindles also so he could bend the axle to match the spindles. Not all spindles were machined exactly the same. Mine is set a 0-1 degrees positive (it leans out at the top) and that is a good match for bias ply tires. If I were to run radials then I would have him set it at negative camber spec. 20K miles and my tire have worn acceptably well.

Toe has already correctly been stated at 3/32 however I found that my tires were not a reliable guide for measuring off of. I used some really nice straight wheels to measure off of. I set the front side of the wheels at 1/16 less than the back side of the the wheels. I estimated the the extra distance of the tires would make it closer to 3/32.

Hope this helps.

 

Yeah we bend em. We still have all the old tooling for bending both camber and caster. Ultimate specs are 0 to +1\8 °camber in the right +1/4 to +3/8 camber in the left with 1/16 toe in. Run caster around 4° & if possible run +1/4 to "+ 3/8 degree more in the right side to compensate for road crown. This will give max tire life & should drive great. This is where we have set them for ovr 35 years.